Young Justice: The Hunter
by NeoNazo356
Summary: The Bow & Arrow: Beautiful in its simplicity. Is it coincidence that every culture on Earth developed it independent of one another? Or is it something else? Something in our blood? Something... primal, that allowed us to manifest it? Of course, the trickiest part about hunting, is making sure you're the hunter, and not the hunted. Which are you? I know damn sure what I am. AU OC
1. Pilot Part 1

**Gonna get the Disclaimer out of the way real quick here. "I do not own any IP displayed and used in this story." For those of you that are new, IP means Intellectual Property, which is defined as "the legally recognized exclusive rights to creations of the mind." If I flat-out SAID what I didn't own the IP of, that'd spoil things since this isn't a straight Young Justice/Crysis crossover, so there's your Disclaimer. All OCs not part of any IP are "owned" by me, I guess, but any prior-established IP I do not claim ownership of.  
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**For those of you that read my previous work, Teen Titans: One of Four Elements, just letting you know this is the work that was self-advertised after the events of Aftershock, but is an entirely separate story. Not a sequel, not a spin-off, completely different. Anyway, on with the show.**

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><p><strong>Manhattan<br>June 18, 13:31 EST  
>2009<strong>

Cascades High School wasn't anything overly-impressive by New York standards, but to hundreds of Manhattan students, from eight-to-three it was home; whether they liked it or not. It was three stories in height with a predominate box-like shape colored gray and tan with red accents, and covered all the basic classes high school forced you to live through as well as some extracurriculars mixed in. School started just after labor day and seemed to drag on for seven hours, five days a week, but solace could be found in the fact that around the last week of June, school would end before a two-month break. Said break was the long-awaited Summer Vacation, which would dominate July and August, heralding in both a new year and several teen pregnancies the next semester.

Of course after what happened back in the summer of '09, people were more focused on regaining some sense of normalcy and rebuilding ruined lives, thus not giving a second thought to teen pregnancies because it was "perfectly natural". To clarify, last year at Penn Station on the Fourth of July, 3:47 pm local time, a man by the name of Alex Mercer purposefully released some kind of chemical bio-weapon before escaping FBI custody; or at least that's what the official story was, and only idiots take those at face value. The people in Penn Station that were around Mercer died within minutes of the ambulances arriving on-scene, and panic had already spread through Manhattan before the local law enforcement could respond accordingly. Like a wildfire, anarchy spread through the city, people scrambling to escape only for the bridges and subways to be blocked off, letting nothing through while those who tried ate lead. People scrambled to escape to the other islands by sea, but that too was a no-go because naval barricades formed and gunned down anyone that tried, giving them a watery grave in the Hudson.

And that wasn't even the scary part. The _really _scary stuff happened towards the end of the first week of what would later come to be known as the First Outbreak of New York Zero. The people that died of the "Mercer Virus" ended up coming back to life as hideous, repulsive, flesh-eating zombie freaks that took to the city en masse, eating parts of people and in turn turning _them _into flesh-eating zombies. You'd think this was just like something out of a horror movie, but this was _far _worse. The "Infected" as they came to be called, had developed semi-bulletproof skin, so shooting them once in the head wouldn't work. A day later this special ops squad in all black toting high-end military equipment showed up, mowing down the zombies by the dozen within minutes of making footfall. Everyone had thought they were saved, but just like the Nazi faction of old, soon this "Blackwatch" began turning their gun sights on civilians, in addition to those they were set to fight.

A lot of the details had been either lost or classified, but the widely-acknowledged sign of when the First Outbreak ended was when some kind of high-powered explosive, like a nuke, went off in the ocean a couple miles outside Manhattan's east shore. After that, the Infected began to dwindle in number until eventually, it was safe to walk the streets once again. Blackwatch pulled out as quickly as they had arrived, and when it was confirmed that the Mercer Virus was no longer an issue, the thoroughfares were unblocked, and those that survived could come and go from Manhattan Island as they pleased. Due to all that had happened, what with the flesh-eating zombies, flesh-eating gorilla-dog hybrids, and black-clad special ops troopers that had killed both Infected and civilian alike, the housing market suddenly became wide open, and the price of said housing had reached an all-time low in order to draw people back in and save the economy from a mini-depression.

However, I'm getting off-topic. It was currently the last period of the school day on Friday, which meant the weekend was right around the corner, and all that stood between Cascades High's student population and freedom from the establishment of education known as high school, was one last class. The class was filled with students from all walks of life, ethnicities, and genders, their attention solely focused on the Social Studies teacher that held dominion over this final hurdle.

"Settle down, students. Settle down," the man spoke over the animated chattering of teenagers eager to see the weekend. "I know that summer vacation is only a week away, but we still have a few more assignments to take care of before school lets out." At that, the class's student population groaned en masse, sans one in the back who waited patiently for school to be concluded, unlike his peers. "Yes, yes, I'm well aware you want to be out those doors to do... whatever it is young adults do with their time," the man said adjusting his glasses. "How about I give you a light homework assignment, and if you can get it on my desk before final bell rings, I'll consider cutting you loose from last period and send you home early starting next." With that announcement, the students cheered, the patient student in the back picking up similar cheers from the room behind him. Apparently more than one teacher was thinking on the same page, almost like it'd been choreographed just so the underpaid instructors could all get their students out of their hair all the faster. "I see everyone is in agreement, so here's what I want you to do," the teacher said as he wrote a single word on the blackboard behind him. **AUTOBIOGRAPHY **"Either write or type a synopsis of your life up to this point, more than six paragraphs in length, double-spaced with 12-point font in Times New Roman, and I won't accept illegible work. The library's computers aren't being used at the moment, so if you hurry, you'll be able to finish with time to spare," the man said checking his watch, the throng of students pouring out the side doors and into the hallway. Sans one. "Mister Valentine, I'm surprised you're still present. Planning on writing shorthand?"

"No. I'll just make use of the computers behind me," he said jabbing a thumb at the quartet of computer work stations behind him, completely overlooked by the rest of the students in their haste to get out of class early. They may've been older models, further back the line than the ones in the library, but they could still get the job done. Albeit a tad sluggishly.

"Sharp as ever I see. Very well then, proceed," the man said sitting at his desk and pulled out a paperback book, the room's remaining student getting up from his desk and booting up one of the computers. His attire bottom to top consisted of black red-accented running shoes, faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt with a red poke'ball symbol on the front, and over that a black tight-fitting hoodie with a skull decal on the left side, a snake coiling up the bottom and slithering out one of the eye sockets.

For a few moments the screen faded to black, revealing the student's features. He was around sixteen years old, face a tad short of being able to incite an all-girl smackdown, though he wasn't ugly either. His features consisted of lightly-tanned skin, shaggy dark-brown hair that stopped just above his shoulders, and teeth straight enough that he never needed braces, but not picture-perfect either. What distinguished him from his peers however were his crimson-colored eyes, almost like blood, and during freshman year people made cracks about him being a vampire until it became evident they couldn't get a rise out of him. The other distinguishing feature was the trio of medium-sized scars diagonally across his face beneath his left eye, comparable to those on the face of Toriko by the anime-obsessed otaku taking up a small portion of the school's population, only they didn't cut through his left ear and weren't as pronounced.

"Alright..." the student said tapping the unresponsive mouse on the mousepad a couple times until the cursor began to move. "Let's see what comes to mind," the brunette said thinking back as far as he could remember and working his way toward the present, his fingers making a myriad of _***clickity-clack* **_as they tapped the keys in rapid succession. _'Glad I chose to take Typing seriously, instead of spending all my time on that Tony Hawk game,' _he hummed to himself as he got to work.

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><p><strong>Autobiography for Social Studies<br>by Virgil Valentine**

**Have you ever taken the time to just sit back and think about your life? Well I have, and mine kinda bites for a while. I mean sure, it's gotten better recently, but still... Most people in general will think their lives are bad, but that's only because they focus on what they don't have but want. Of course, I'm not that much different, but what I don't have is a little more lasting than the newest phone, or the latest game, or even the nicest car in the parking lot.**

**You look at me, and you'll see an average guy whose parents might have been Italian. The reason I say "might have", is because I haven't seen my parents in near a decade, and my memory of them is a bit fuzzy. They didn't abandon me or anything like that, or at least not of their own volition. I can't remember everything too clearly, but I remember being in a car with my parents, I think it was raining, and suddenly another car comes out of nowhere and runs us off the road. I'm pretty sure that's where I got the scars on my face from. The one beneath my eye is the most prominent, but I've got others on my scalp too. My parents told me about life and death from a young age, so when the police told me my mom and dad, Eleanor Lucrecia (nee Valen) and Vincent Evander Valentine, had "gone away for a while", I knew they were gone for good. To this day I still don't know who ran my parents off the road or even why, but despite all the time that's passed I still haven't made peace with that.**

**Back on topic, with my parents dead I was put into foster care. I got juggled from one family to the next to close to a decade. I got to meet a lot of interesting people, see some new places, and made a couple friends along the way, however I've lost contact with most of them throughout the years. That was probably for the best though, since none of the arrangements were ever permanent, with things derailing one way or another.**

**The first time things derailed for me was actually the very first time I was adopted; that time I was adopted by a South Korean couple by the name of Jai-Bong and Aei-Young Kim. They'd already had a daughter of their own, but because she had gone off to California to complete her education, they decided to adopt rather than have another baby. Their English wasn't the greatest, though neither was my Korean, but we managed to communicate after a while. Things were good for a while... but then it turned out my adoptive sister, Joyce Kim, was a North Korean spy who had attempted to seduce an experimental physicist at the California Institute of Technology for some kind of rocket fuel formula or something. By default... that also meant my adoptive parents were North Korean spies as well. Long story short, adopting me was part of their cover as a couple feigning Empty Nest Syndrome, and considering I was "extra baggage", they abandoned me when they decided to haul ass and get back to their communist homestead. Plus side: I was bilingual in both English and Korean. Not really sure if that's a good thing though.  
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**Second time, I got adopted by a Swedish family with an alpaca ranch up near the Canadian border. Of course, after the **_**last **_**fiasco, foster care ran a more extensive background check before passing me onto them; pretty sure the FBI is still keeping tabs on me for the whole North Korean thing. The parents were named Aarto and Labolina Frisk, their twins named Hansel and Gretel: to be perfectly honest the latter two looked like Augustus Gloop out of Willy Wonka had performed mitosis and split into two halves of the opposite gender. Out of the three of us, I was in the best shape, thus I was able to help my foster father out on the ranch, while the two of them loafed about. However around my ninth birthday, cookies started going missing from the cookie jar, and almost immediately the fraternal twins pointed their sausage-shaped fingers at me. Even though I'd been helping on the farm, in Aarto and Labolina's eyes their children could do no wrong, while I was merely the adopted extra for free labor and a monthly stipend. Long story short I was quickly ostracized from most of the family as tensions rose, and first chance I had I got out of the Frisk house and back into the system. If there's any solace to be found in all this, it's that those two fat bastards probably have Type Two Diabetes and lost the use if not one but both legs. I know that's mean and all, but my parents didn't raise me long enough to teach me not to have a grudge.**

**With all that happened between the ages of six and nine, foster care decided to keep me off the market for a while and desensitize me to what happened at the hands of the Korean and Swedish families that had adopted me. On one of my handler's visits I tried asking that they not send me to anyone "too foreign", but that would constitute as "racial profiling", and officially they could not do so. Of course, I think they at least took it into consideration after the North Korean thing. Around the age of ten I was sent down south to Louisiana and adopted by a nice black family, and it actually **_**was **_**a nice family; no secret spy activities or spoiled-rotten children, just a nice black Christian family. The father had a clean record and a steady income, the mom was stay-at-home, a son who I saw as a brother, and a nice house with a backyard and a small amount of electronic stimulation to take the edge off a few brain cells. In the course of two birthdays, I managed to make some good friends along the way... only for things to turn south again after my twelfth birthday. Turns out that region of Louisiana was a powder keg for white supremacists that fancied themselves to dress like ghosts and carry torches, and while a black family adopting a white boy from foster care was like smoking around a powder keg, said black family attempting to formally **_**adopt **_**said white boy was the same as dropping a lit **_**torch **_**in there. Long story short, my adoptive family had to go into witness protection once the torch-wielding ghosts mobilized, and I was pulled back into foster care for my own safety. After what happened the prior two times, I shouldn't have been surprised.  
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**After more than half a decade of one fiasco after another, you'd think foster care would just put me up in a regular adoption home until I was old enough to do things for myself, right? Wrong! At least **_**that **_**time when I got adopted, my foster parents were forthcoming with the fact that this arrangement would be more circumstantial than anything else. Down in Miami Beach, Florida, there was a lesbian couple by the names of Miranda and Ashley Jane who wanted to see what it'd be like raising a full-grown child before having one of their own; **_**however **_**they did that, because back then I had **_**no **_**idea how that kind of thing worked. To my surprise, things actually went really well, and by the time I was fourteen, my foster mothers had decided they were ready to raise a child on their own. At that juncture, while it would've been nice to have a permanent family, I'd rather leave the two of them to raise their lesbian love-child and go back into foster care than be shoved into the background. They said such a thing wasn't going to happen, but they wished me luck all the same when it was time to go.**

**So... while I hadn't been driven completely bat-shit crazy by all the weird stuff I'd been through, I was still used, and more importantly, **_**damaged **_**merchandise. Honestly it's a wonder my **_**current **_**family adopted me at all for the last two years without any signs of things derailing horrendously. Of course I should probably tell you a little about them so you actually know what I'm talking about. On-paper they appeared normal enough, but after all the past fiascos, I wasn't going to hold my breath for too long. Now however, this seems fully legit with no weirdness. Or at least no more than usual.  
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**My foster father is named Eric State; tall man, blond hair, blue eyes, part of the MIPD/Manhattan Island Police Department. My foster mother is named Tina (nee Braxton); petite woman, brown hair, green eyes, stay-at-home mother who sells beauty products over the internet and sometimes door-to-door. Next come my foster siblings, and not twins after the **_**Swedish **_**fiasco, and neither is female so I don't have to worry about **_**two **_**periods a month like the Miami **_**Beach **_**fiasco. Next is my oldest foster brother, goes by the name David; muscle-bound, has his father's features, and member of the school's football team. He's been trying to get Head Quarterback for a few years but his grades always make him come a bit short of getting the position. After that is the is the older sibling above me and middle child, Daniel; he's built a bit smaller than his brother but has his mother's features, and is part of the archery team. I actually got into archery freshman year and almost shot right past my brother, only he's still got a few more years on me.**

**In summary, my life's pretty good right now. Three square meals a day plus desert if I so choose, satellite TV and DVR, my own video game console albeit used, and a few peers I can call "friend", but none in **_**this **_**particular class. There's a hint of vulgarity in the house, but it's spread all around, and after being put through the ringer like I have it isn't anything remarkably new. Sophomore year is almost done and summer vacation is right around the corner, so that's just about my whole life up to this point, more or less.**

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><p><strong>June 18, 14:46 EST<strong>

"Hmmm..." the social studies teacher hummed to himself as he looked over Virgil's paper. "A little informal, but a lot more elaborated upon than the works of your _peers_," he said tapping a pile of papers haphazardly tossed onto his desk, few of the hastily-made reports no longer than two pages in length and hashed out in all of ten, twenty minutes tops.

"I'm... glad you think so," Virgil returned, unsure whether to take it as a compliment or not.

"Well, everything seems to be in order," he said slapping an **A-** onto the paper. "I'll pull you aside Monday afternoon and have the arrangements made at the front office."

"Thank you, sir," Virgil said as he looked around the classroom. "Where's everyone else?"

"They left. Just because they gave me inadequate work, they think they can leave school early," the man said adjusting his glasses. "I'll cut them some slack today since it's Friday, but they won't be so lucky next week. Is school here _really _so bad?" he asked as he flipped through the papers, some of which weren't in double-spaced format, or lacked 12-point print, or both.

"They've probably just got ants in their pants," Virgil said slinging his bag over his shoulder. "Hey, um, you'll keep what's on that report confidential, won't you? I may've gotten a little too into it and written down more than I should have." _'Especially when it came to the lesbians. Aunt Period's visits were _not _pretty__._'

"Understandable," the man said handing the **A- **paper back to his student, who proceeded to slide it into his bag. "Now, why don't you head on home. The next bus should be here in... ten, fifteen minutes."

"That's okay. I can walk. Good for the heart and all that," the brunette said leaving the classroom behind him, making his way inconspicuously to the exit and onto the route that would take him home.

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><p><strong>NeoNazo356: Hello readers, before anything else, I'd like to take this time to introduce my Beta and Chief of Research, Spaceman.<strong>

** Spaceman: Hello. When NeoNazo356 needs data in anything in the story, I'm the one that will hunt it down and together we develop the plots for his stories.  
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**NeoNazo356: Hey now, don't sell yourself short. If it weren't for all the sound boarding you helped me with, there wouldn't be _nearly _as much planned content in this story as there was. And most of it wouldn't be as good.  
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**Spaceman: Thanks. We sent thousands of messages, hundreds of pages brainstorming Ideas. We researched and developed histories for every character. I'm glad my efforts on various media, wikia and science site were worth it, and I hope the Readers will enjoy it as much as we had fun developing it.  
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** NeoNazo356: Now, most authors leave "AN" at the beginning or even ends of their chapters, but I like to think Spaceman and I are laving "Author Commentary". Like director commentary, only in scripted format. In this way, people might actually be compelled to read it because its "fun", since on here Spaceman and I might answer questions some of you might have about the chapter prior, or just context that might be mixed.**

** Spaceman: This story is going to be mostly a crossover between animated series Young Justice and video game series Crysis, but there other crossovers elements (such as personal video game favorite Prototype). These elements are woven together, interconnected to form a story that I hope the Readers will enjoy as much as we do. **

** NeoNazo356: And in case it wasn't blatantly obvious enough, Virgil Valentine is an OC/Original Character, so if this is the kind of story you can't stand, just quit reading right now. I don't need to hear any of you bitch about me using an OC instead of a pre-established character from an IP/Intellectual Property. God knows there are so many interpretations of Naruto out there, some of which are so far from Masashi Kishimoto's original vision, they might as well be OCs by the same name. Now ending rant... Back on topic, this is mostly an introductory chapter to the main character in the form of a third, first, and then back to third-person narrative, so of course there won't be a ton of elaboration just yet. You'll have to wait until next time to read more.  
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	2. Pilot Part 2

**I put both the 1st and 2nd chapters out at about the same time because they're both essentially like two halves of a Pilot Episode. Reviews would be appreciated, though Anonymous reviews, especially Flames, will be ignored and/or deleted.**

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><p><strong>Manhattan<br>June 27, 13:05 EST**

Sophomore year at Cascades High School had ended a couple weeks ago, and Summer Vacation, the academic break most waited all year for finally came around. Looking out at the city, you could almost never tell that Manhattan was once the sight of the worst viral epidemic in all of recorded history. While the death count wasn't as high as the Bubonic Plague that ravaged Europe during the Dark Ages, the Bubonic Plague never turned humans into _FLESH EATING ZOMBIES_! Of course, at the moment this story's protagonist wasn't looking out at the city, but was sitting on his bed in the re-purposed guest room, country music playing off an old radio sitting on the window sill as he stared at a poster of the Justice League's founding members on the opposite wall to his bed. _***thunk*** _As he threw darts at it.

"Take that Batman." _***thunk* **_"Take that Superman." _***thunk* **_"Take that Aquaman." _***thunk* **_"Take that-

"Quit your bitchin' Nancy. We get it, you don't like super heroes," a brown-haired muscle-bound man with green eyes sneered as he walked by the open doorway.

'_I've really got to learn to close that thing,' _the brunette thought throwing his last dart. _***thunk* **_It hit Aquaman two for two.

_***Knock-knock* **_"Hey, Virgil," a blond-haired teen with blue eyes said poking his head in through the doorway and knocked on the door. "Are you upset about something."

"No. I'm not," the brunette returned poignantly.

"Come on, bro, the only time you mount an all-out assault on the League is when you're upset," Daniel said running his fingers through his hair as he sat down on his younger sibling's bed. "Talking will make you feel better."

"I'm just thinking how big a _joke _the Justice League is in its entirety," he said throwing another dart. This one landed in the middle of Superman's insignia. "Growing up, without my real mom and dad, I always wondered where the heroes were, the ones in the capes and tights that saved people when they were bleeding out in the front seat. And then I remembered, they don't save most people. They only save people when it's convenient for them, don't have to go too far off the beaten path, and beneficial to their egos. If they _did _save everyone, there wouldn't be war orphans, or those left in Foster Care to swim through the system because their parents get killed."

"Hey, come on, man, you're starting to sound like that Godfrey guy."

"And why shouldn't I? I mean just _look _at these assholes, walking around all high and mighty with their _super hero social club_ and their fancy schmancy Hall of _Justice_. Bah, if there were any _justice _in this world, the asshole that killed my parents wouldn't have gotten the slap on the wrist like he did and get off Scott free," he said walking up to the board, plucking the darts before sitting back on his bed and juggling them over in his hand. "I mean first you've got _Super_man," he sneered at the red and blue-clad superhero. "This guy has got to be the _biggest _Gary Stu of all time. Guy's got super strength, laser vision, ice breath, is _everything_-proof except for some obscure magical space-rock, and if he became the filling of a planet sandwich the guy'd probably just _shrug_ it off."

"Oh come on, now you're just exaggerating," Daniel said shaking your head.

"And if that wasn't enough, the guy creeps me the _fuck _out," the brunette added with a shudder.

" . . . Why exactly?"

"The guy wears underwear on the outside of his pants and smiles that creepy Superman smile in the presence of small children," the brunette said holding two darts in his fingers before flicking his wrist _***thwak-thud***_, one dart landing in Superman's lap and the other on his smiling face. "Creeps me the fuck out."

"I'll agree that under certain contexts Superman _can _be a bit creepy, but does it mean he deserves the kind of punishment you're subjecting his poster to?"

"Superman's just the start. The rest are next," Virgil said juggling his darts in his hand before turning his aim to the left. "Batman, _whoever _he is, has money out the _wazu _to afford on all that bat-themed crap he totes around, yet instead of investing it into Gotham's police force or tearing down all the abandoned buildings and shit that criminals-on-the-run use for hidey holes, he runs around on a self-indulgent quest for _vengeance _dressed up like a winged rodent. On top of that he and his child sidekick wear _spandex_, and they spend all _night _together. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know what's going on there."

"So the guy has a few unresolved issues. Everyone does."

"And then we turn our attention to the Flash," he said as though he were the color commentator on a play-by-play. "The guy's covered head-to-toe in skin-tight red spandex and lightning bolts, yet _somehow _he finds a way streak everything he goes. Hasn't the guy ever heard it's better to conceal than to reveal?" he asked his foster brother incredulously, who simply shrugged his shoulders. "Seriously, if the guy forgot to put on pants one morning, he could moon half the US in a cross-country streak and no one'd be able to cover their eyes in time."

"Aren't you getting a little too graphic?"

"And then there's _Aquaman_, Ruler of the Oceans," he said after hitting Flash right on his bulls-eye lightning bolt insignia. "The guy rules two thirds of the world, yet without any water he's just another incompetent. I mean, there are all those whalers and shit killing endangered species outside Japan, yet not _once _does he capsize their ships and perform a public execution when the cameras are rolling."

"Wouldn't that be bad for the environment?"

"And then we have _Wonder _Woman."

"Oh come on, what do you have against her, she's _gorgeous_!" Daniel protested, although taking a closer look at the poster he noticed she was the only hero not riddled with pock marks from angrily-thrown darts. At most the dart marks simply _surrounded _it, like in the old cartoons where projectiles traced an outline around the person they were meant to hit.

"It isn't her _looks _that I have a problem with, it's how contra_dictory _she is," the brunette said juggling his darts before letting one fly **_*thud*_** the pointed projectile landing between hers and the Green Lantern's head. "She claims to represent equality between men and women, yet she's dressed like one of Captain America's _show girls _from World War Two."

"I always thought that was some kind of magic battle armor," Daniel admitted.

"Colored red, white, and blue with _stars_, all at the same time? Not likely," the brunette huffed. "Really, you think she could put on a jacket or something, because she looks a little too _patriotic _to be one of the Amazons from Greek legend."

"Though you have to admit that strapless bustier looks good on her," the blond chuckled, earning a look from his brother. "What? You just said she was the League's _eye candy_."

"No, I didn't. _You_ just said she was the League's eye candy. In fact every time we've _had _this talk in the past, you've brought that same point up."

"Moving on...! Who's next on your shit list for crappy heroism?" Daniel said changing the subject.

"The guy who looks like St. Patrick's day threw up on him," he said tossing a dart in his hand. "The guy's _power ring_ or whatever the fuck it's called can turn imagination or willpower or what_ever _it is into reality, but half the times he's less imaginative than a ten year old. Beams and walls? Yeah, like that doesn't get old fast enough. Really, a comic book artist would be a _way _better superhero than him. At least _then _Green Lantern wouldn't look like a colossal _douche_."

"And what about this guy, or are you telling me you have xenophobia?" Daniel asked as his brother chucked darts at the lantern insignia and his ring hand.

"Dude, there is no freaking _way _that's what Martian Manhunter _really_ looks like," Virgil growled as he juggled his last two darts in his hand. "For all we know his _true form _could look like something out of Dead Space, and when no one's looking he eats _people_," the brunette said throwing the last two darts, nailing him in the right arm and left leg; a method which in most cases worked pretty well for Isaac Clarke when it came to dealing with the alien Necromorphs.

" . . . Feel better?" Daniel asked once the last of the brunette's supply of sharp and pointy objects had been exhausted. It wasn't that he was _scared _of his younger foster brother who his family took care of for money. It was just that the younger brunette was a better archer than _he _was, though he didn't want to _admit_ it. His aim was something else when he put the effort in.

"I actually do, yes," the brunette said with a sigh, his gaze turning to what hung on his wall above his bead. "God, our big camping trip can't come soon enough, can it?" he asked anxiously, his heel bouncing up and down off the floor as he looked at the Folding Ranger X Compound Bow mounted on the wall, which he'd received last Christmas after he'd taken an interest in archery.

"Looking forward to killing something with those fixed-blade broadhead arrows, are we?" Daniel asked.

"I'm hoping to bring in a nice slab of venison for dinner after we step out of Manhattan, maybe get adopted for _real _this year," the brunette motioning to the quiver he kept hung up below his bow and at an angle. "Hey Daniel..."

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever get that gut feeling that something _really _bad is about to happen?" he asked holding his stomach as he looked out the window to the neighborhood below. Back in 2008, there were tanks, and Marines, and infected flesh-eating zombies running around spilling blood, guts, and sinew all over the place. It was amazing anyone _stayed_, but with the dropping price and availability of real estate, the opportunists out there looking for a good home capitalized on the opportunity presented to them.

"Like what? Another Outbreak?"

"Well... Alex Mercer is still at large. The fact that the Justice League didn't help in the _slightest _is also worrying," the brunette said flipping through channels in the small TV of his room. "What if he comes back and causes another Outbreak like last time? The roads and transportation lines will get blown again, and we're all going to be stuck here with our asses hanging in the wind."

"Virgil, we're talking about the most wanted terrorist in the history of _terrorists_. I highly doubt he'd come back to the same place he made his terrorist debut, simply for the fun of it," Daniel replied shaking his head.

"Maybe you're right..." Virgil said laying down on his bed and staring at the ceiling. "I don't know whether it was coincidence or not, but the First Outbreak happened on the Fourth of July. No matter how you look at it, that _had _to be a giant middle finger to the US of A."

"Yeah, life is funny that way," the blond said brushing back his hair, an old habit he developed to keep his hair out of his eyes while he practiced archery "Hey, you wanna play some ODST?"

"Dibs on Sgt. Johnson!"

"Oh, damnit, you _always _get Johnson."

"Need I remind you of the International Dibs Protocol?"

" . . . No."

"Good. Then let's get this party started," the brunette said starting up his old, but still operable, XBOX 360. Of course, if he knew what was soon to come, he'd be more inclined to let that one slide, and focus more on getting his adoptive family as far away from Manhattan as physically possible within time constraints.

Of course, hindsight _was _20/20 perfect.

* * *

><p><strong>NeoNazo356: It's chapter two, and we've seen another glimpse of who Virgil Valentine really is. I'll say right now, he's not a self-insert by any definition, his backstory was detailed for the sake of being detailed and giving him a sense of cultural diversity. Virgil's foster family (and past families) are all OCs as well, and any similarities to actual persons both real or dead are purely coincidental. The North Korean family though was a reference to "The Big Bang Theory", Season 3 Episode 22, episode 62 overarching; that's the main exception.<strong>

**Spaceman: I've scene the opening for the Big Bang, but I never watched an episode. There are a few OCs in the story, but most are reimagined characters from other franchises. The introduction of various elements leads to different histories and different characters. Sounding smart,** **huh?**

**NeoNazo356: And though Virgil may throw darts at superhero posters when he needs to vent, he isn't stroking a murder boner or anything, he just isn't into the hero-worship like everyone else. The niche that he falls into will become more defined as time passes, and his future interactions will shape not only who **_**he**_** becomes, but will shape who others become in his eyes and vice versa.**

**Spaceman: Virgil proves the point that heroes can't be everywhere and save everyone. He doesn't have the blind faith in them and after going threw the mess that is his life, it's less likely he will ever will. This Hunter-verse is a darker world, so one can expect a darker outlook.**

**NeoNazo356: A closing statement to end this Author's Commentary. Like in Young Justice, "timestamps" will be used to help illustrate the passing of time and difference in locales. The template used is the same as in Young Justice, though the **_**year **_**will only be added at the start of each new year, or when it actually matters. I'm also contemplating on using timestamps to help illustrate flashbacks as opposed to a (Flashback Start)/(Flashback End) prompt, though I'll have to actually **_**get **_**to that point before deciding for certain.**


	3. Countdown to Zero

**NeoNazo356: Before we start things up, I'd like to take the time to answer some FanMail, aka Reviews, for the first and second chapter. This will not be done for _every _single Review, only the ones that actually qualify for answering. This means there will be no responses for single-sentence Reviews like "Great chapter" or "Update more".**

**Spaceman: We do have limits. Reviews that ask good questions get good answers, and I hope you understand we work as fast as it's comfortable. Its much easier to write a story when you enjoy the story, and it makes the story more enjoyable to the readers. There will be Updates, but give us time to make Great Updates.  
><strong>

**NeoNazo356: "Alright, first FanMail comes from..." is what I would _like _to say, but the fact of the matter is that no Reviews warranted answering. I'm not saying I don't appreciate the Reviews, Favorites, and Follows, I really do, its just that they were mostly COMMENTS, not actual questions. You ask me a question and I can answer it in Author's Commentary, but give me a comment and I can only acknowledge that I got it. Which I did.  
><strong>

**Spaceman: We appreciate all encouraging reviews, but we also want to hear your questions. What do you want to know about our story? Any questions within reason (and won't spoil the story too much) we will try to answer them to best of out ability and we hope this interaction will allow us to make the story better. We are listening, all you readers have to do is ask.**

**NeoNazo356: Final notice before the chapter starts. I apologize in advance for repeated use of the word "Nazi" when describing Blackwatch, its simply the most-apt word I can use to describe them, I mean no offense to anyone of German descent, nor do I intend to bring up any bad cultural memories for anyone of Jewish descent. Only reason I AM apologizing in this manner is because I don't want some whiny prick to file a complaint and get this story removed just because I use the word "Nazi" in my work. Honestly some people get offended way too easily and simply need to grow a pair. Like what happened with my XBOX 369 gamertag, but you'll have to ask if you wanna know about that little fiasco.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<br>July 4, 15:05 EST**

It all happened so suddenly. It was difficult to believe it was even real, but it happened.

Alex Mercer, the "Monster of Manhattan", made a comeback at Penn Station to direct and star in The Outbreak: Part Two. I don't know how he got back in there after the way security was beefed up, or even how he got back into the _country _when he's at the top of every wanted list in the free world, but shit hit the fan in the absolute _worst _possible way. Minutes after he walked out of Penn Station, him dropping yet another bio-weapon was all over Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter before hitting the news a few minutes later. The moment **Mercer** hit the on-screen captions, pandemonium spread through Manhattan like wildfire, and everyone made for the nearest thoroughfares out of town. However, almost as if the whole thing was choreographed, a squadron of jets flew by and bombarded the bridges, all preamble of military checkpoints out the window. Only a couple dozen cars managed to escape, while countless more were lost in the bombardment.

The Second Quarantine had begun.

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<br>July 5, 06:00 EST**

The military's response time was incredible. While the initial naval blockade only hours after Ground Zero consisted of a mix the US Coast Guard and Reserve Forces gunning down anyone that tried to leave by boat _-all opportunities to turn back were ignored, given what was waiting for any boat-owners back on short-_, the US Navy was able to mobilize a more-specialized naval barricade surrounding the island. A few months after the First Outbreak, a number of documents that became declassified stated that the Mercer Virus was non-commutable across large bodies of water. This meant, since it could not move through the air like pollen, the other islands were safe as long as no infected material reached the mainland.

God knows _that _would be a total disaster. Like every zombie movie _ever_.

The bulk if not the entirety of Blackwatch was quick to mobilize as well, arriving primarily by air, the only handful of boats mooring up on shore heavily-defended. Even though the guys were armed to the teeth and dressed like Nazi storm troopers _-sans the Swastica-_, people were still desperate enough that they tried bum-rushing them like the new guy in gym class. Predictably and true to form, that ended up about as well as you'd think it would, because it seemed like they still had their penchant for shooting the people they were _supposed _to be there protecting. No preamble or telling them to return to their homes, just an instant lead buffet that lasted all of ten seconds.

They may've only had infantry at the moment, but at this stage of the infection... _uuugh_, pun not intended... Just that much would suffice for the time being.

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<br>July 6, 09:23 EST**

Third day in, and things are starting to get worse. The same breeds of Infected as last year are beginning to surface from a myraid of underground lairs, and people are beginning to shut themselves in. A number of storefronts have already been raided, and with the police otherwise preoccupied trying to keep what little order they could where it _first _sprung up, most of the shelves had already been picked clean. After cutting off the land routes, the government _did _start air dropping supplies, but with how meager they were, there was no way to feed a sustainable population. By now I'm pretty sure that Mercer dropped his bioweapon on the Fourth of July this year and last _intentionally_. The same strain of virulent bioweapon dropped two years in a row on the same date, which happens to be the most patriotic day on the American calendar... Coincidence?

I think _not_!

Surprisingly enough, Blackwatch is actually doing a half-decent job of keeping the flesh-eaters at bay despite the fanfare surrounding them after last year's shitstorm. Rolling blackouts however have people cowering in the dark with no power, and any means of communicating with the outside world had been cut off. If Blackwatch pulls the same shit as last year, the government could make any bullshit cover story they'd want, and everyone would believe it no-questions-asked. As long as it doesn't happen to them, its not _their_ problem. Assholes!

As loath am I to admit their presence would be much appreciated, there isn't a single superhero in sight to help turn the tide of things, and until they can clamp down on "The Second Outbreak", every man, woman, and child regardless of race, age, and social standing is all trapped on this disease-ridden rock.

The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up just like a few days before this whole mess, and as much as I hate my gut instincts telling me this, things are going to get _infinitely _worse before they get better.

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<br>July 7, 18:42 EST  
><strong>

"How the hell are they letting something like this fly _twice_?!" Virgil cried out, the sound of gunshots ringing through the floor just below their apartment. Just yesterday Blackwatch had been doing what they were _supposed _to do, keeping the Infected in line, but now they're systematically clearing buildings under the premise that we're all "infected". Half the people they'd killed hadn't even been outside their own doors in _days_, yet they were still going through with this.

"The government's out of their fucking minds, that's how," David growled, pissed off that he was just sitting there and doing nothing, despite the screams and gunshots from the floor below. Though he put on a strong front, he was scared just like the rest of them, fists shaking more with fear than rage.

"They've been killing everyone in our building floor by floor saying we're "contaminated". In a couple minutes the Girlscouts from Hell are going to be knocking on our doorstep," Daniel said as he paced nervously, his heart beating a mile a minute. "What're we going to do?"

"You three, take the fire escape and run for it. Your dad and I will catch up," Tina said as she loaded her concealed firearm, snapping the magazine into place, before grabbing a riot shield from the MIPD.

"These guys have automatic weapons and Kevlar vests. How're we going to stop that?" Virgil asked.

"Second Amendment, 'cause I pay my fucking taxes," Eric said cocking a fully-automatic shotgun after loading in a double drum magazine. "I ain't going down without a fight, you shouldn't either," he said slipping his own Kevlar vest over his head.

"Go, your father and I will be fine," Tina said pulling her sons into a hug. "Virgil," she said to her foster child as the other two opened the window to the fire escape. "Keep your brothers safe, got it?"

"Y... Yes mom..." Virgil answered. By the sad look in his adoptive mother's eyes... she knew she wasn't going to make it through this. _'Its just like back then all over again, and just_ like _back then..._' he growled as he climbed out the window, _'Not a single superhero in sight. Figures.'_

"Alright you assholes, you want me?" **_*Ch-chik* _**"Come and get me!" the man shouted as he leveled his shotgun at the door, letting loose lead slugs the moment it was kicked in. On the rear wall of the building, the three teens descended the fire escape as fast as their legs could carry them, thankfully the back alley left unguarded. Vergil was the last to drop to the ground, automatic rounds tearing out their apartment's back windows, though by the sound of things, their parents weren't giving an inch.

"Dammit, I hate leaving them like this," David spat angrily, knuckles tightening around the baseball bat he'd grabbed at the last minute.

"We all do, but this is our best chance to get away," Daniel said as he ran his fingers through his hair with a huff. "All we can do is get away and lay low until this whole thing blows over."

"Flesh-eaters on our six!" Virgil swore as the south end of the alley was soon filled with Infected, all of them lumbering towards the source of fresh meat down the way. Unfolding his bow and reaching for an arrow, he soon felt a hand stop him.

"Don't waste your arrows! Just run!" Daniel said as he took off, Virgil following shortly after as fast as his legs could carry him. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he noticed all too clearly when the sounds of gunfire from his apartment stopped, but he couldn't focus on that. His parents had given them an opening to run, and mourning in the middle of the street would make that sacrifice completely meaningless. The next moment, a manhole cover in the middle of the street in front of them was flung upwards as an Infected crawled to the surface, followed by many others from the ground level as well.

"Fuck! We're surrounded!" David swore as he looked around, no other means of escape available. Looking up to the fire escape, he saw a few Blackwatch from before lounging around, drinking beers from _their _fridge and looking down at them like they were watching the game. "Mother_fuckers_!" he swore as his grip on his bat tightened. "We're on our own down here! Force your way through!" he roared as he rushed forward, bat raised above his head as he let loose a rage-filled shout, bringing his bat down over the head of the first Infected he got to. Behind him, Daniel grabbed a pair of trashcan lids, using them as impromptu shields and bludgeons in a desperate attempt to make an opening. At the back of their formation, Vergil shot arrows into the faces of anything trying to get to his brothers from behind, all the while not noticing one of the Blackwatch above lining up a laser sight directly at him.

"NO!" Daniel shouted as he shoved Virgil out of the way **_*BANG*_** a spray of blood exploding out of his chest and dropping him to the ground like a sack of potatoes a moment later.

"Daniel!" Virgil cried as he ran over to his brother's side. Sparing a glance at the Blackwatch on the fire escape, now heading back inside out of sheer boredom, the brunette swore beneath his breath as he pulled his brother's arm over his shoulder.

"Just keep pressure on it, we'll patch you up in a minute!" David ordered as he continued to fight back the Infected, though by himself he was losing ground and fast.

"Ngh... Sorry bro..." Daniel wheezed as blood oozed out of his chest. "I won't... be getting up from this," he sighed in resignation.

"Don't talk like that, man! You'll be fine!" David growled even as he was forced back, his bat now bent beyond recognition.

"Virgil... Promise me... that you'll make it through this..."

"I will! With the two of you!" Virgil argued as he let loose arrow after arrow, knocking the Infected onto their backs with each arrow through the eye. When his fingertips met the edge of his empty quiver, a sense of dread dropped into his gut like a lead weight, that dread soon replaced with shock as a pair of strong hands grabbed him before his feet left the ground. "David! What're you doing?!"

"I won't leave my brother behind, so its up to _you _to get away," the older teen said as he hoisted Virgil above his head, the Infected slowly advancing towards them. "Promise you'll get even! Promise me!"

"Wait! We can fight them off together!" Virgil cried as he tried to get free.

_"Goodbye... little bro," _David said above a whisper as his muscles bulged, before the brunette was suddenly thrown over the alley wall.

* * *

><p>I tried to get back over that wall, help fight the Infected off so we could patch Daniel up and get away, but the wall was too high for me to get over on my own. I wanted to cry, but my tears had run dry ages ago, so all I could do was turn and run.<p>

My weakness... I hated it... I utterly despised it...

I hated myself for always being so weak. Never able to change anything. Always being led along by the nose, as though God were punishing me for some crime I had supposedly committed in a past life.

What I hated even more however, was that without any arrows, my bow and quiver were dead weight. That was no longer a luxury I could afford, but I couldn't just throw it away either. All I could do in the end... was lean the once-proud weapon against the wall that separated me from my brothers' final resting place. The only evidence, befitting an unmarked grave.

I ran for what felt like hours, my eyes stinging, my lungs burning, my legs heavy. But no matter how much I wanted to collapse, I could not. I _would _not.

Eric. Tina. David. Daniel. All of them had given so much, and in the end all they had to show for it was an orphan out of Foster Care who in the end couldn't save even _one_ of them. On one side, an army of flesh-eating partially-bulletproof zombies. The other, a hoard of sociopathic modern-day Nazis with US government funding and a green light to do whatever they damn well pleased. The odds were stacked against me, and I had effectively been abandoned by my own country, but even if I were fated to die on this rock, join my birth parents in the next world, I wouldn't go down without a fight.

There would be blood paid for that which was spilt.

"I swear it."

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<strong>  
><strong>July 8, 08:45 EST<strong>

The next day I wanted to mourn, to just break down over the fact that my family had died so quickly the day before, but I couldn't. They died, so I could live, and I couldn't just sit around and let myself get killed, or their sacrifice would've been for nothing. When I got my head back on straight, and I was less fatigued from pumping adrenaline, I was able to realize that the dumpster I had slept in the night before was for a used clothing store. With how quickly things descended into hell, the storefront was completely unrecognizable, and with how tired I was simply never noticed the contents until just then. Casual wear wasn't going to keep me safe, so I guess I should thank _whatever _lucky star I was born under that I found a dumpster filled with used clothing. Shedding everything else sans my underwear and shoes, I was able to pull together some black cargo pants, a tight-fitting olive T-Shirt, and a black-and-grey camouflage raincoat. Now that I had some half-decent urban camouflage, I could move around a bit easier since I didn't stick out like a sore thumb any longer.

Someone even threw away a perfectly good black grey-accented backpack, which would be invaluable for carrying out supplies. Really, the perfectly good stuff people throw away is simply ridiculous.

Knowing Blackwatch, they probably left my mom and dad to rot where they lay, but I was just too weak-willed to go back there and see the bodies for myself. This meant if I wanted to scrounge for supplies, I'd have to do so somewhere else. Asshole Blackwatch probably cleaned out the fridge anyway. I swear to god, if I ever see a modern-day Nazi outside this island, assuming I get off, I will _kill _them. And their Nazi families. And their Nazi pets named Hitler.

Anyway... The only "somewhere else" I could think of where I _knew _there would be food was Cascade High's cafeteria's pantry. A year back things were tight, so I worked in the kitchens washing trays in exchange for food, hence I knew that part of the school inside and out. From what I could tell, only _small _pockets of Infected were ever active during the day, my brothers and I were just unlucky enough to encounter _two_ of those fewin a pincer formation. On the inverse, Blackwatch were at their _most _active in the day and retreated back to their concrete-walled bases at night. Going against either was suicide as I was now, but on my own I could move quicker and less noticeably than if I were in a group of three... Between the two evils, I'd take the lesser of them and head for Cascades High through the sewer. Between psychopathic Nazis with guns and flesh-eating zombies, I'd rather contend with the things that did NOT have guns and shuffled about like the undead.

The fact they were _-mostly- _bulletproof was a non-issue, since I wasn't going to go out of my way and pick any fights.

After getting my inner Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle out of my system, which consisted of using _-or at least_ trying _to use_- a skateboard to get around faster, and peeking up through a couple rain grates, I finally found the manhole in front of Cascades High. The front doors were barricaded, showing I wasn't the _only _one with the idea to seek asylum here, but the abundance of breakable windows flanking it showed that the school was _far _from defensible; play enough Halo multiplayer, and you tend to pick up where you can or can't make a last stand. Either way, getting in without cutting myself up too badly was a bit of a bitch, but since I didn't want to get infected in the middle of a _quarantine zone_, I put in the extra effort to NOT get myself cut on anything sharp and/or rusty.

Once I pulled myself into the building, the first thing I noticed was there was a _lot _of blood on the linoleum tiles; the place looked like the bastard love child between Shark Week and Lord of the Flies. The good thing about Blackwatch simply up and leaving the dead where they fall is _everyone _got treated that way, hence why I had a firearm in my hands after the gun stores had been picked clean; with Blackwatch leaving their dead behind so the living could fight off the Infected, I was able to pick up a gun and some ammo the night prior before they could come back for it. I might not have ever fired a gun a day in my life before outside a FPS, but it didn't take rubbing _too _many brain cells together to figure out that you turn the safety to **Off**, point the end with the hole in it at what you want to go away, and pull the trigger. If I actually _do _make it out of this mess alive, this'll be great practice for the zombie apocalypse.

Knowing my shit luck, I'll live long enough to get off this disease-ridden rock, only to get sucked into _that _zombie-filled mess sometime down the road.

Back onto the topic at hand, as compelled as I am to go raiding the cafeteria for any food that hasn't spoiled _-food poisoning will slow me down more than an empty stomach-_, I need to find out what happened here. Clearly there's more than one person using this place as a hidey-hole, and there was some form of disagreement between them. Otherwise there wouldn't be bloodstains on the walls, or blood-stained drag marks showing where bodies had been moved. Every ground exit was barricaded just like the front door, comprised mostly of every piece of furniture from the first and possibly second floors that wasn't bolted to the ground, so it was easy enough to scan every room on the ground floor before moving to the next. While the first floor had obviously become everyone's toilet after the water had been cut off -_if the smell was anything to go by_-, the second was obviously used for orgies or whatever people chose to do at "the end of days". If I wasn't so focused on making sure the deaths of my family weren't in vain, I'd probably prioritize having as much sex as I could before the end as well.

Fucking V-Card.

**_*BAM*_**

A door kicked out from behind me as I walk past, a ginger teen inside my age group stumbles out into the hall, covered with sweat and grime, clothes slightly unkempt, and down the front of his pants was a pistol as though the fly were his holster. It took me a couple seconds to put a name to that face, not that I really _cared _about the name mind you, he was just some schmuck who always crammed at the last minute before test-time and always had to try copying _my _answers. Not really someone I called friend, then again being a "Foster Kid", I had few of those to begin with. Even in the Archery Club, I was always just "Daniel's foster sibling", never just Virgil. Of course after the last few Foster Homes where I had to leave after only a couple years, I was hesitant to make any connections if they were just going to get severed again.

"Freeze!" he shouted as he grabbed his gun. When part of it had gotten snagged in his zipper, I was surprised the dumbass didn't blow his crotch clean out his ass. Nonetheless, when he freed his gun from the confines of his drawers, he aimed the iron sights my way. "I said freeze!" I use the term "aimed" as loosely as possible, since the end of his gun was bouncing all over the place in his shaking hands. "Don't move!" Obviously I turned around when the door got kicked out, but haven't moved after this guy started spouting bullshit. "Drop your bag and weapons and I'll let you go!" he said with a sneer, though by the quivering in his voice it was mere bravado. At that moment I realized it was _he _who started that vampire bullshit two years ago during freshman year, and I didn't very much care for him after that. "Bitch, I will shoot you in the fucking _face _if you don't give me your-"

**_*BANG*_**

Blood dribbling down his face, his gaze turned from the smoking gun now pointed his way, up to the third nostril imposed on the middle of his forehead. Knees buckling and body crumbling to the floor like a wet sock, the wannabe gang banger fell onto his back, grey-matter and blood spilling out behind his head onto the linoleum tiles. Arm falling to my side, the weight of the firearm I'd taken the day prior tugged at my shoulder as I blinked the muzzle flash from my eyes. A low din meeting my ears, I looked down, then to the side, as the ejected casing from the gun in my hand rolled across the floor before stopping when it met my shoe. And at that moment, after piecing everything together, from the flash, to the bang, to the corpse of my classmate on the floor, it dawned on me.

"I shot him."

Shooting, no, _killing _another person should've weighed more heavily on my mind. To take another person's life should've been gnawing at him deep down inside. Eating me up from the inside out like a flesh-eating disease.

Yet it didn't. At that moment something in my head just _clicked_. I raised my gun, pulled the trigger, and put a permanent end to the unending stream of bullshit leaving my peer's mouth. Moments later another two wannabe gang bangers step out into the hall, eyes turning to the corpse on the floor with gaping mouths like that of a goldfish. For their troubles, instead of a third nostril I opted to give them each a pair of lead earplugs. Then, as though a dam burst, ragged parodies of my once mild-mannered peers began to pour into the hallway, guns and crude weapons in hand as they come at me. Not unlike the flesh-eaters outside, since they were just-as-coordinated.

And that was just sad.

Five minutes into my little lead-lined crusade against my deranged former classmates, it occurs that there is probably something _very _wrong with me. I mean, one would think a person would _hesitate _to pull the trigger when its aimed at a living, breathing person, let alone a couple dozen of them, but strangely, that's not the case. I point, shoot, move onto next target, rinse, and repeat. Seriously, if all that shit in foster care _isn't _what turned me into a psycho-killer-in-the-making, I don't know _what_ did.

New York Zero the Sequel might've been the straw that broke the camel's back, but the cracks in the foundation had shown long before then. I just didn't know it yet.

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<br>July 9, 19:56 EST**

Apparently I'm _not _as crazy as I previously thought, because if I were, I wouldn't have spent half the evening and following morning puking my guts out after coming down from my adrenaline high. While I didn't hesitate to pull the trigger, or in some cases beat my peer's skulls against the walls until they quit flailing, it was the aftermath when things started to catch up and I could finally shake off the haze of red from in front of my eyes. Some of it is still a bit blurry, but they brandished weapons, I simply responded in kind with equal or greater force. In a court of law I could probably get off by a self-defense plea... but it doesn't change the fact that I killed more than a dozen people that day. It could be more, and I simply lost count after the shit-eating grin pulled itself across my face and my pupils dilated to take in more light.

Surprisingly enough after I'd boarded up the principal's office to catch forty winks, I wasn't haunted with nightmares of what I'd done, nor did I hallucinate about having blood-soaked hands that would never again be clean. Nature versus nurture, I've got no godly idea, but its possible I was simply _born_ to be a killer and didn't even know it. Still, I wasn't filled with an unending desire to kill _everything_ with a face, nor did I have any desire to _eat _them, so at least I was better off than the nutcases in Arkham like the Joker or Killer Croc. If anything, I was probably the same kind of crazy that The Punisher is, able to kill whenever I pleased, but able to at least _control _where I vent my frustrations.

Christ I need to get laid.

That reminds me for whatever reason. Since I wasn't stroking a murder boner, that probably gave _some _credence that I had retained some degree of sanity.

Still, just because I could kill easier than most didn't mean I was suicidal in my endeavors. By now, there were simply too many Infected for a non-SPB (Super Powered Being) to handle alone, and while by appearances Blackwatch was running sweeps of the population to keep the Infected in line, my observations say otherwise. Most of the time these Nazi assholes are sitting comfortably in their walled fortresses, killing only what walks in their general direction as if to meet some sort of daily quota. With how they're dragging their feet, I get the impression that they're dragging things out _intentionally_, like fighting the Infected isn't their real reason for being here and they're using the whole thing as a cover-up for something far worse. However, I lack the time, resources, or reason to dig further, my biggest concern simply to ride things out, possibly see the light of day again if the dust ever clears.

The fact that I couldn't even come _close _to identifying the assholes who swept my building clean if I saw them meant vengeance would have to wait. But at least I knew when/if the time came, I wouldn't hesitate.

Back onto topic, that explosion off Manhattan's south shorte at the end of The First Outbreak, the government neither confirmed nor denied anything when pressed for details, which in summary means they were caught with their dicks in their hands but didn't want to admit anything. In short the explosion was evidence they planned to _nuke _NYZ off the face of the map, but someone stopped it. Shot in the dark, but these guys are probably trying to _weaponize _this inky black shit. If it can turn people into bulletproof flesh-eating zombies all by _itself_, I shudder to imagine what it could do after a little "tailoring".

All that aside, it was getting more and more difficult by the day to dredge up supplies. With working power and running water near non-existent now, half the time I found anything resembling food, it had usually spoiled to the point that it would simply be worse _to _eat it than to not. Same as with drinking saltwater, you'd wind up wasting more water than you would've taken in, so in a number of cases I had to leave whatever I'd found. With options running low, the best bet I had was stealing whatever I could from Blackwatch convoys moving along the city.

I didn't know if I was the only actual _person _left in New York Zero who wasn't a flesh-eating zombie or a modern-day Nazi, but one thing's for sure... I'm not just going to roll over and die so easily. Not after I'd come so far. This _countdown_ to the end of the life I'd led before. There wouldn't be any "back to normal" for me. Not after all this damage.

* * *

><p><strong>NeoNazo356: Well... I never really wrote a city descending into anarchy in the wake of a biological weapon attack before, or the armed forces' response to it, or even a person systematically killing off his would-be graduating class and finally learning how mentally-unbalanced he really is beneath all his posturing, but I like to think I did a half-decent job on this. Sorry that things have been a bit dry up to this point, but Vergil's foster family, like those that came before, was never meant to be around for the long-term. Fact of the matter is they're not trained soldiers, they're civilians abandoned by their government, so their deaths won't really be so spectacular.<br>**

**Spaceman: Virgil is in a bad place and you can't blame him. This isn't the case of a guy complaining about how hard his life is, but man who has lived a hard life and is now reaching his breaking point. The stress is starting to weaken Virgil and changes are happening. In those types of life, you can either break completely or become stronger. That is the beginning of a protagonist.  
><strong>

**NeoNazo356: For those of you familiar with my prior work, Teen Titans: One of Four Elements, you'll have already known that this is the work prior self-advertised if you took the time to read the "trailer" after the chapters detailing the events of Aftershock. While the OC here and there share the same surname, and are similar in appearance, they are not the same person, and this is not, I repeat _NOT_ an off-shot of TT1o4E, its an entirely separate storyline; Teen Titans takes place on Earth-12, more commonly known as the DCAU, while Young Justice takes place on Earth-16.  
><strong>

**Spaceman: Vergil is not like most Good Guys in the comics, he sees the world in shades of grey and he himself is a darker shade. He's not Superman who despite not being human is paragon of humanity. He's not like the Bat trying desperately to preserve his parents' ideals. He's the type of hero that understands the lives of the innocent are more important than the possible redemption of a criminal. He's willing to stain himself with blood of criminals to protect the innocent. He's similar to Raiden from Metal Gear, a soldier who values the lives of the innocent and willing to go to extremes to complete his mission.**

**NeoNazo356: While technically he's only looking out for himself at that point in time, that mindset will slowly change into something a little more "humanitarian" once he's gotten out of NYZ. What, you thought I was going to keep him there forever? On note of how he's survived in the Red Zone for that long, for those of you that've played Prototype 2 your skepticism would be understandable, but let me remind you that similar things have happened in fictional media before. In Red Dawn, a bunch of teenagers kept their heads down and used guerrilla warfare tactics to push back the Mexicans and whoever else they were fighting. In Walking Dead people from every walk of life kept themselves _relatively _in one piece against hordes of the flesh-eating undead. In this case, Vergil just happens to be juggling both at the same time.  
><strong>


	4. Seizure of Property

**NeoNazo356: Alright, first thing's first, we've got a review from StrayTitan asking- "Have you decided a definite timeline for when the infection ends or some of the main events (like the Whitelight announcements and distribution or the final battle)?" To answer that, first-chapter it was established that the events of Prototype in THIS universe instead took place in 2008, and the now-current timeline is 2009, one year before the events of Young Justice itself. The Second Outbreak happened in July on the 4th of July, 2009. I have a vague outline in mind, but saying anymore would be Spoiler. Next one is from Kaioo from Chapter 2 saying- "You missed a very good note on Flash. Admittedly it's main universe Flash not YJ Flash. If he could be bothered, the Flash could get rid of ALL CRIME in the world with ease, due to his documented speed."  
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**Spaceman: Good Point, Kaioo. I'm reminded of the version from the Kingdom Come series who literally stopped Every crime in his city, living in the seconds. The only reason the Flash does not stop all crime in other series is because he has a life outside of his heroics and needs to slow down to interact with others. Still it does not help the people who suffer those crimes because Flash slows down to makes another lame joke. I do wonder, if Bats was less territorial and paranoid, maybe Flash could occasionally run by and keep Arkham from being a revolving door to all things crazy.  
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**NeoNazo356: One final piece of business before this chapter starts. A total nark by the name of unknown eragon left an Anonymous Review for Chapter 2 saying- "unknown eragon:U have some NERVE to publish a new fic when u have others to finish d***!" My answer to this and other like Anonymous Reviews will be as follows. "Those who can't do, bitch." Kinda like "Those who can't do, teach." (no offense to any now-current or would-be teachers who are reading this), but in the case of Anonymous Reviewers, since they're incapable of writing their own material, all they can do is bitch about others to make up for their own ineptitude. Why else would they review anonymously like a little yellow bellied chickenshit?  
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**Spaceman: We respond to intelligent questions and smile at simply praises, but flames aren't worth our time.  
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* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<br>July 11, 09:32 EST**

"You know, if there were still cops around, I would probably _never _do something like this," Virgil said to himself as he refilled his quiver with serrated-edged hunting arrows from boxes on the shelves, before walking out of what was left of the front doors. The arrows themselves were better for cuttng bone and rending flesh, quite good in opening up superfluous new assholes in whatever poor schmuck he William Tell'd.

Obviously enough in a near-post-apocalyptic city, it was ridiculously easy to utilize one's Five-Finger Discount completely unperturbed. Then again that applied to _everyone _if the aisles of empty shelves were anything to go by. Normally people wouldn't openly loot storefronts like a swarm of locusts devouring fields of wheat, but with the police otherwise preoccupied it was open season. The cops had disappeared days ago, as did the fire department and hospital staff, so there wasn't anyone Vergil could rely on but himself. If there was _any _good to be had, it was that Vergil only had to worry about the noise _he _made, the only mouth to feed was _his_, and he could go wherever he wanted at whatever speed he chose at a moment's notice without preamble.

After he had cleaned out Cascades High, so as to not worry about any of his former peers coming after him for revenge, he had gone to one of the sporting goods stores and procured the few remaining compound bows for his own use; for obvious reasons, a gun would be his last resort. All the crossbows and crossbow bolts had been taken, but that was because anyone with a _pulse_ could use them, leaving the _serious _archery materials untouched. Most would think against an army of modern-day American-funded Nazis equipped with Kevlar vests and automatic weapons, that an ordinary teenager wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell armed only with a bow and arrows. Those people would be idiots, since Green Arrow took down things _way _more dangerous, and even though Vergil didn't have any "trick arrows" to work with, he compensated with the fact he was _not _aiming to take prisoners. It was Nazi Season.

"Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers."

He didn't go out of his way to hunt down Blackwatch patrols, and no way in hell was he going to storm their bases when they had automated turrets on the high ground. However, when they moved by whatever hole in the wall he was hiding in, he'd take the high ground and put an arrow through their heads. Most would aim for the chest since it was a larger target and thus easier to hit, but after that _something _in his head had "clicked", like the hammer of a revolver being drawn back, he found himself in possession of a clarity he didn't have before. It wasn't anything like a mutant or meta-human ability, the difference being you were born with the prior and the latter was induced artificially, but it was substantial enough that he could snipe trained soldiers with ease from a block away. His weapon was nearly-silent with the distance between him and them, and with enough practice he could put down small squads with ease before they even knew where he was. In the cases where they _could _get a bead on him, when they turned their guns in his direction he'd already moved to a new perch and finished what he started moments later. Suffice it to say, whenever one tried to radio for backup, he either put an arrow through their head, or when that wasn't an option dropped a stolen grenade in their laps. One time the guy tried to pick it up and throw it back at him, but because it'd been "cooked" for a couple seconds before throwing, it went off right in his face. And then sent it flying half a block, but that wasn't important.

Humorously enough, after one had managed to get away with only an arrow through the knee, which at the time was meant to be a _joke_, they had taken to calling the entity that was attacking them with such primitive weapons "Black Arrow". If Vergil had any kind of love for superheroes, or vigilantes, or whatever the government classified them as, he would've been flattered. He didn't really care _what _they called him, he just wanted to get his pound of flesh out of every Blackwatch he came across. And what better way to do that, then to put an arrow through the front of those goofy-looking masks of theirs?

He HAD promised he'd get back at the Blackwatch that killed his family, but feasibly that wouldn't be very possible since all of them looked the fucking same. Same uniform, same masks, same weapons, everything. The most he could do was hope that at least ONE of the squads he'd killed off contained members of Blackwatch from the group that had killed everyone in his building. It was the most he could hope for them, as was said.

Over 90% of the city's _original_ population not counting Blackwatch had now become flesh-eating Infected, and even if he _did _snipe them from his perch, it wouldn't change the fact that it was a fruitless endeavor. There were simply too many for one person to handle, and more importantly it'd be a waste of his time, energy, and resources, none of which he could afford to expend frivolously. He could only re-use his arrows so many times before they got warped beyond use, and it wasn't like he was just going to find whole _cases _of arrows lying around once the sporting good stores were picked clean. What he _could _do something about was the Blackwatch squatters littering his town. They were supposed to be _protecting _people from the Infected, but instead they performed mass executions in the streets, sweeping entire apartment complexes clean with a shower of bullets, and by every definition of the word only exacerbating the problem at hand. He may not've been a trained soldier, but you didn't _have _to be one in order to harass enemy forces occupying your home. When his family died, adoptive or not, a part of himself he had just gotten back was unceremoniously ripped out of him once more, and all of his anger for the world around him that had been building up for years finally had an outlet.

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<br>July 12, 22:13 EST**

_'The first time I played inFAMOUS, I never thought I'd have to do something like this in real life,' _Virgil thought to himself from the shadows as he stared at a large army green crate in the middle of the street. Attached to the top was a now-exhausted parachute sprawled out limply across the ground, the top busted open revealing what appeared to be standard military rations. While a far-cry from even the lowest-level restaurant in the city, it did not change the fact that the food in that container contained all the nutrients needed for an active person to remain healthy and fed, regardless of any lack of taste they may have. In the early days of the Second Outbreak, people _literally _killed one another for scraps of food and mouthfuls of water.

This had been going on for a couple weeks after the stores were picked clean. Planes would fly overhead and drop crates of food into the city via parachute, those down below would scramble to collect as much of it as they could, and if anyone got in their way they were more likely than not beaten to death and then left in the street. As the days passed, the mobs converging on each drop for food became smaller and smaller, and the fact that Blackwatch would turn those drop points into bloody kill zones didn't help things any. Eventually it got to the point that there were more Infected than humans, the disparity between the two growing by the hour until the majority of Manhattan resembled a ghost town in the day, and a horror flick once the sun set.

_'Mother FUCKERS!' _Virgil swore beneath his breath, grip tightening around his bow as the gears in his head began to mesh. Due to the total information blackout in and out of the Red Zone, it was easy to spin a yarn about how the populous was still alive but in desperate need of food. To keep up the public image of "protectors" Blackwatch was fooling the American people with, they were air-dropping food for the sake of appearances and nothing more. Before, during the First Outbreak, the Mercer virus had been contained in Manhattan before it could spread to any of the neighboring islands, so by extension the same could be said about Blackwatch. Now however, if the armed choppers flying through the air were any kind of indicator, they now maintained a presence on the neighboring islands as well, though at the time Virgil had nothing to confirm this. To sum things up, the Mercer Virus spread faster and hit harder than during the prequel, so the peoples' attention was doubly-set on New York, and if Blackwatch wanted to avoid fighting enemies inside and out, they'd have to play nice. At least where the sun shone.

_'If I ever see a giant swastika and a shrine to Hitler in one of their bases, I wouldn't be surprised,' _Virgil huffed to himself. With hungry eyes and ears all about, be it for flesh or for blood, it was hard to know when it was safe to talk aloud or not. Because of this, Virgil had not spoken audibly for days at a time, alone with only his thoughts. His eyes on the street for any signs of movement, he was about to deem it safe to move in and snatch some food and water before an all-black jeep carrying four Blackwatch turned the corner. They were still roaming outside the safety of their reinforced concrete bases, so either these were some hardasses who weren't scared off by the "Black Arrow" attacks, new recruits being given crap duty, or maybe a mixture of the two. Watching as they came to a stop, but leaving the engine on, Virgil tuned out all outside noise and instead focused on the words coming out of their mouths. After a few moments of the possibly greenhorn Blackwatch talking amongst themselves, the brunette picked up something very... illuminating, from their little dialogue.

_'So... Their little scheme is even worse than that...' _Virgil huffed as he digested this new information. The food drops into the Red Zone weren't just for the sake of appearances, Blackwatch was also profiting from them. While the American people paid taxpayer dollars to have food dropped for people that don't even exist anymore, Blackwatch comes up and pockets the food themselves, spending less of their _own _money on food to feed themselves, and instead spend the money they _would've _spent on food, on weapons or Hitler memorabilia instead. _'As if these dogs couldn't get any lower,' _he growled to himself, feeling very tempted to William Tell every Blackwatch down there; not just because he wanted to kill anyone wearing their colors, but because the food down there looked _very _good right about then. It was meant to go to survivors in the Red Zone anyway, so why not collect?

The next moment, one of the Blackwatch's heads exploded right off their shoulders, and by the sound that came just a moment before it came from a silenced pistol. The fact that whoever it was even _used _a silencer showed they were trying to use the element of surprise, instead of face Blackwatch in a straight up fight, which for all intents and purposes was paramount to suicide. Blackwatch now on guard, the remaining three went back-to-back-to-back, assault rifles drifting to wherever someone could've gotten the jump on them from. One of them going for their radio, Virgil quickly notched an arrow before letting it loose, the black-colored shaft sailing through the air before making the Blackwatch look like he were wearing one of those gag props. As a consequence, the brunette's position was given away since it was only from the second floor, and automatic gunfire chewed into the wall he was hiding behind a second later. Throwing himself to the ground the moment their rifles swung around in his direction, dust from brick and drywall choked the air as automatic rounds tore through where he was a moment earlier. Army crawling as low to the ground as possible, bullets whizzing over his head just barely scraping his hood, the gunfire suddenly stopped.

All of this took place in the course of five seconds.

Edging slowly to the side, careful not to make even the slightest hint of noise, as soon as Virgil met the wall on the far side of the room he was in, he began to sidle back around towards the nearest window. Heart beating against his chest at the near-death experience he'd just gone through, shaking out the images of his life flashing before his eyes, the brunette pulled out a small pocket mirror before angling it ever so slightly in the light. Keeping himself hidden as best he could, the brunette panned the mirror around to see a woman standing over the two Blackwatch that had been shooting at him moments before, their faces blown out from behind. From her relatively-relaxed stance, it seemed like she wasn't going to try shooting him, possibly recognizing how he'd prevented reinforcements from swarming _both _their asses by sniping the guy going for his radio. The woman had a bit of a heart-shaped face, full lips, a small nose, blue eyes he guessed, and messy short-cut dark brown hair. She wasn't wearing any makeup, but past experience in foster care told him women could look good even without dolling themselves up. She was wearing practical running shoes, camoflage-colored cargo pants, a black shirt, and a green leather jacket, a gun holster at her side, and a sling bag over her shoulder.

"So... I'm guessing you're this _Black Arrow _that's got the Watch's panties in a twist," the woman called out to him, nudging a corpse with her foot that had an arrow through each temple. "For a moment there I thought a superhero had decided to show up." Those very words made Virgil's stomach churn. "But seeing how you understand the whole _'kill or be killed' _thing going on, I'm guessing you're someone whose gone through their own crucible, huh?" she asked as she pried the lid off the busted case and began stuffing her bag with rations. "You'll probably find this suspicious, but I think the two of us can help one another out. What do you say?"

" . . . You know what'll happen if you try to double-cross me," Virgil eventually answered, making his way to the ground floor, but keeping his weapon well in hand. Unlike Blackwatch, he couldn't sense any killing intent from the woman who called out to him, but if she made even the slightest twitch otherwise, he could always rectify that with an arrow to the knee. Or wherever he decided to nail her.

"I have a pretty clear picture," the woman said looking down at the body once more, holstering her pistol as she rummaged for more supplies.

"This is Blackwatch Command to Broadway Patrol Three: How copy?" **_*krrk* _**"I repeat, this is Blackwatch Command to Broadway Patrol Three: How copy?"

"Shit," the woman swore. "Don't just stand there! Grab some supplies before the search party gets here!"

"Alright, fine!" Virgil huffed finally coming out of the shadows, scooping as many MREs and water canisters into his own bag. "Not that I don't appreciate a friendly face, but who the hell are you?"

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<strong>  
><strong>July 28, 21:22 EST <strong>

Suffice it to say, I was _very _shocked when the woman whom I "stole" (read: reappropriated) food and water with turned out to be who she turned out to be. My first instinct was to shoot her; two in the chest and one in the head to be safe, and then maybe carve her head from her shoulders in case she had regeneration abilities. To her credit, she kept her cool, so in turn I gave her the chance to speak. Wouldn't do to raise a fracas and attract unwanted attention.

After I had gotten over the fact that Dana was the little sister of a _super_-terrorist, the two of us were able to make significant headway in securing a permanent base of operations for ourselves. If she truly WAS working with Mercer, he would've set things up so she was somewhere ELSE when the Mercer Virus got dropped, like Brooklyn or Staten Island. So I had a better grasp of the situation, Dana was kind enough to fill me in on what had been happening outside Manhattan once things started to spiral down the crapper.

Up to that point, the only area I knew of for certain that had been infected was Manhattan, the "Red Zone" if the bitching of new Blackwatch recruits was anything to go by. While I had been skulking around the lower half of the island, before things went to Hell, upper Manhattan was carpet-bombed in an attempt to neutralize the Mercer Virus before it could spread completely out of control; obviously it did not work. From Dana, I learned that somehow, despite its inability to commute across large bodies of water, the Mercer Virus had also gotten to Brooklyn, now re-christened the "Yellow Zone", and if her contact's information was anything to go by, the place was a massive Petri Dish for studying the Mercer Virus, though it was _far _better off than Manhattan. Aside from Manhattan and Brooklyn, Staten Island was the most-populated area, and by far the best off with almost no traces of the Mercer Virus present. The only island _not _being affected by all this was Roosevelt Island, headquarters of the enigmatic Hargreave-Rasch Biomedical, mainly because of its distance from the other islands and ease of which it could quarantine itself. Since there was no known Blackwatch presence there, what happened there wasn't any of my concern.

After that, we hashed out the details about the division of labor, since it'd be more efficient for the both of us to work together, than to try and survive individually. Our first mission, a bit of a trial run to see how much cohesion as a unit we possessed, was to bring a gas-powered generator up to the highest intact floor of an office building she had been squatting in after the people had disappeared. Since the elevators were all dead, this was something she couldn't do on her own until a second pair of hands became available. I still didn't completely trust her, but with a surname like Mercer, that was easy-enough to understand. Since we had managed to climb the seemingly-endless flights of stairs without attempting to murder one another, we decided to stick together, better our chances at surviving this.

While she coordinated the resistance effort in the Yellow Zone, she also informed me of when and where Blackwatch caravans would be cutting through the Red Zone to their bases. By that point it was simply more-efficient to steal from Blackwatch than it was to comb every decrepit building for supplies that may or may _not _be there. They had kill-on-sight orders on our heads anyway, so we might was well give them a more-tangible reason for killing than because we weren't flying Blackwatch colors.

Eventually, we developed a bit of a routine between us. She'd piggyback onto Blackwatch communications every couple of days, isolate the locations of supply drops, and then the two of us would conduct a raid right as Blackwatch arrived to pick it up. The reason we _waited _was because we had no actual idea of _when _they'd appear, and if they caught us out in the open and unawares, we'd be good as dead. Hence, why we'd waste them as soon as they came out into the open, then run off with the supplies and be gone well before reinforcements could show up. Dana may not've been a fighter like I was, but she could still shoot a gun, and she could carry supplies, meaning we could get by on only two raids a week. Because we conducted our raids on varying days, Blackwatch wasn't able to get a bead on our patterns, hence they were unable to set any traps for us. As I suspected, collecting the food drops was a "crap job" in Blackwatch, handed out to those who pissed off their commanding officers in one way or another.

With the smoke choking the air above the Red Zone, the sky had become an eerie shade of red nearly all the time, and the fires that somehow continued to burn gave off a few pockets of light in the darkness. To be honest, I was surprised how well our shelter in the office building was holding up. The cubicles were ample material for creating shelters from the elements, since using a heater was a non-option, and after throwing a few stolen military-grade tarps over the windows of our "Fortress of Solitude", we gained a small semblance of privacy from the prying eyes of Blackwatch. While we HAD been looting their supplies and killing their men for a few weeks now, Dana theorized that the losses to life and property were still small enough, that the results of our interference were considered "acceptable losses" and fell within acceptable quotas before retaliatory action need be taken.

"Why would they care for a drop in the bucket?"

As time passed, Dana and I got used to each others presence. Dana, being Mercer's younger sibling, began doting on me as though I were _her _younger sibling. Of course, it was a bit difficult for me to reciprocate, since even after all that time and close calls we had at the hands of Blackwatch or the Infected, the stigma of her being the younger sibling to a super-terrorist still hung over her head like a storm cloud. Still, I appreciated everything she did for me, and when I confided in her my ability to seemingly kill without hesitation, albeit still having to face the moral consequences _after the fact_, she was surprisingly understanding. This went a long way in re-evaluating my self-worth, because until I'd heard her say- "Its alright." -, the only thing I was able to see in the mirror every morning was a monster at worst, a stranger at best. I hadn't started hallucinating or anything, so that was a good sign.

On an unrelated note, I was _very _sexually frustrated after all this time. Coming face to face with my own mortality on so many occasions, and having my own V-Card rubbed in my face with each near-brush with death as my life flashed before my eyes, made me all the more aware that I could very well die a virgin out here. As any hot-blooded guy will tell you, dying in such a manner is a fate worse than death. While Dana _was _of the female persuasion and actually quite beautiful in a post-apocalyptic older-woman kinda way, the whole _Mercer _thing was like a coating of penis repellant. Even if I _did _ask, whether she said yes or no, in the aftermath it'd irreparably damage our cohesion as a tag-team, and right now that very same cohesion was the only thing keeping us alive. So, clenching my teeth and imagining a _very _cold shower whenever my damn adrenaline-fueled hormones would act up, I kept a lid on some of my more... _personal_, issues.

If I ever made it off this rock in one piece, first thing I was going to do was get laid, I don't care _who _its with.

But not with a dude because, you know, I'm desperate, but not _that _desperate.

* * *

><p><strong>Manhattan<br>August 9th, 18:32 EST**

It'd been over a month since the start of the Second Outbreak, and by that point Vergil and Dana were quite sure they were the only uninfected, non-Blackwatch humans left on the entire island of Manhattan; there was no evidence saying otherwise. Things had eventually reached an equilibrium between Blackwatch and the Infected; Blackwatch and Infected would kill one another wherever they clashed, Blackwatch flying in more troops to replenish their numbers the next day, while ever more Infected seemed to crawl out from the shadows. The two survivors had long-since shed any form of body fat from their frames, given military-grade rations weren't the most indulgent of foods, and out of necessity they'd developed bodies that could get them into any spec ops group the world over. With little to no progress being made towards a supposed cure, or at the least, a neutralizing agent for the "Mercer Virus", all the two of them could do in their off-time was piggyback onto Blackwatch frequencies and listen to any form of chatter they could.

When they weren't listening to the radio, they'd use high-powered scopes to look out into the city beneath them, trying to get some grasp on whether things were improving, or if they were still going downhill. Kinda like birdwatching, only _everything _in your sights could potentially kill you and/or eat you. While chatter of a supposed "Goliath" variant of Infected had been floating around the airwaves in recent weeks, the existence of a forty foot-tall Infected monster was met with much skepticism by the two, regardless of the other things they had seen thus far. That's why it came to them as quite a shock to them, when Blackwatch's fears were validated. Standing several stories tall, vaguely humanoid in shape but lacking skin on most of its body, a _goliath _mass suspended upon two spindly legs, one arm ending in a hooked claw, while the other looked like it took up half its body mass, came lumbering within arm's reach of their hideout. The beast would've toppled their hideaway with them inside had it not found more-obvious quarry in the form of a very loud APC just down the street.

After almost locking eyes with _that _fucking thing, he was pretty sure nothing _-SPB or otherwise-_ would ever scare him again.

On that very night, a Tuesday if the calendars were anything to go by, while Vergil was field-stripping a sidearm and silencer, a well-worn copy of Gun Safety & Cleaning For Dummies Kit at his side, Dana was once again huddled over the radio. Food and fresh water would run out the day after tomorrow, but if there was another food drop somewhere nearby, they could swing by to pick it up and be set for another few days. This had become so commonplace, that Vergil didn't even listen in anymore, he simply kept his stolen guns cleaned and ready to be used at any given moment. However, it was when Dana began furiously scratching details down with a pen on paper, that his attention was piqued. Whenever she jotted down the details for intercepting food drops, there was never that much... _urgency_, in her strokes. Now, with the way her eyes were widened, the end of her pen practically _burning _a trail across her notepad like the squealing tires of a racecar, it was almost as if she were jotting down the instructions for a "Magic Bullet" against Blackwatch and the Infected at the same time.

"...So Dana..." Virgil spoke up a few minutes later once she had finished writing down whatever it was she was putting down, a trickle of sweat running down her temple as she appeared to be trying to calm her breathing. "...What'd you find...?"

"Something... Something big," she answered.

"You're serious?"

"Entirely."

* * *

><p>"You really think this... <em>thing<em>, Blackwatch is having flown in, can stand up to Mercer?" Virgil asked a couple minutes later after Dana's explanation. "Last I saw before the information blackout, there were videos of Mercer chucking soccer vans around like softballs on Youtube. And this _thing _can level the playing field, just like that?"

"They sounded very confident. Since Roosevelt Island is a complete information blindspot, it isn't implausible they've been developing something like that for the past couple of decades."

"Add in the recent influx of extraterrestrial technology, and I guess _anything's _possible," Virgil hummed. He'd spent some of his youth skimming over superhero forums, learning as much about them as he could, and while most of it was crap, he _had _learned that the green-skinned Martian Manhunter and the tight-wearing Supemran weren't the _only _aliens making Earth their home.

"Mercer must believe it too, 'cause there's been a spike of Blackwatch casualties in the past couple of days. Based on my estimates..." Dana said going over to a chart showing projected Blackwatch numbers. "When this thing comes in, guard detail inside their bases will be at the minimum."

"The fact they're wheeling it in regardless must mean they're both very confident, and very desperate," Virgil hummed. When resources were scarce, you didn't spend what little you had _trying _to get more, unless the effort was worth the risk. "This is a very big gamble they're taking. One I intend to take advantage of," he said going over to his combat gear, consisting of stolen weapons, grenades, knives, and dark-colored camouflage.

"I see..." Dana was silent for a few seconds before the inflection of his words suddenly hit her. "Wait, what?!"

"Blackwatch is getting desperate. So desperate they're rolling out an unfinished prototype that hasn't even been through basic testing," Vergil said as he walked into a cubicle, throwing his clothes atop the wall before changing into his stealth-oriented gear. "If I stop this shipment, destroy it even, I'll set them back by weeks, maybe months. They don't _really _intend to help people with this, not by a long shot, so why should I let them gain more power than they already have?"

"Virgil, this isn't like a hit-and-run on a food drop. They're transporting serious, military, hardware, with the most they can manage guarding it," Dana argued as he began synching a combat harness onto his frame. "You go in there on your own, and it'll be a one way trip." Seeing how he was adjusting a combat knife onto his boot, she grabbed him by the shoulder and made him look her in the eye. "Virgil, don't throw your life away like this!"

"WHAT _LIFE_?!" he shouted at her, slapping her hand from his shoulder. "My family is dead, my _friends _are dead, my graduating _class_ is dead because I_ killed_ them all! What kind of life can I lead now!?"

" . . . " Dana Mercer had no answer to that.

"My entire life, I've always gotten the short end of the stick, as though I'm God's personal whipping boy! Seeing all this, I realize, haha, I don't fucking _care _anymore!" he said throwing his arms out. "The world's gone to shit, the Justice League is a no-show, _again_, and its every man for himself on borrowed time. But please, do tell me if there's any reason I _should _care what happens to me," he added sweetly, voice dripping with sarcasm as he pat his chest for emphasis. "Because I sure as hell don't have anyone _left _that'd care."

"_I _care. I don't want to see you throw away your life like this," Dana reaffirmed.

"Your big brother is the psycho-terrorist who damned us all to Hell. You don't count!"

"That... _thing_, is not my brother!" Dana shouted. _"Not anymore," _she said more to herself than anyone else.

" . . . You can't stop me from doing this," Virgil said turning away from her. "After my family died, all I could do was mimic the motions of life. Like a living corpse, not quite dead, but not quite alive either. Things as they are, it doesn't really matter if I come back or not," he said looking over his shoulder, a tired, _tired _eye boring into her own. With no real way of _identifying _which Blackwatch had killed his family, he'd simply killed as many as he was feasibly able and hope he'd get at least _one _of them on the end of an arrow. "Either I steal or destroy this weapon from Blackwatch before they can fuck us over even worse, or I get killed by them or the Infected walking the streets. Either way..." he said picking up his bag. "I won't have to suffer a life like this for too much longer."

"Virgil..." Dana called out weakly as he rounded the corner, gone from sight as the sound of his footsteps began to disappear.

* * *

><p><strong>NeoNazo356: For those of you that are familiar with Prototype 2, YES, I am aware that in-game Dana Mercer operated out of the YELLOW Zone, not the Red Zone, but this is fanfiction, so I'm free to take some creative liberties; if you don't like it, you can spend your free time doing something <strong>_**else **_**instead of reading this. If you want an explanation for how that works out for the game's events in-story, basically she leads the Resistance in the Yellow Zone FROM the Red Zone, end-of-story.**

**Spaceman: The purpose of fan fiction is to explore different paths. How small additions can have greater effects on the development of characters and settings. Canon is the path the original creators took, but this is our creation walking a separate, but familiar path. We hope the creative liberties add new dimensions to the story being told. **


	5. Big Game Hunt

**NeoNazo356: Given the Author's Commentary isn't long enough to cover an entire page, by now you may've noticed the little musical prompt at the very start. I don't intend to use music cues ALL the time. In fact it'll be a rare occurrence if anything. But whenever I think of a song or tune that fits with the then-present theme, I'll put it out there. Its mainly to set the mood, not mandatory. The intended music is meant to "end" at the first paragraph-breaker post-prompt. Speaking of which, since the _traditional _paragraph-breakers seem to glitch out occasionally, I'm just going to use Bold, Centered prompts that are the chapter's name with Asterisks on both ends.  
><strong>

**Spaceman: Music has always been a good addition to story telling, setting the mood when the words can not fully set the tone. You can listen to the music and get a sense of NeoNazo's feelings when he was writing this story. Too much takes away from the story, so I hope we added enough for a good experience. **

**NeoNazo356: Now a quick bit of fanmail from Gelasmus. "****I am curious to know if there are any planned pairings though," To answer that question, Spaceman and I have been planning _this_ *_nudge*nudge*wink_* story for a little over a year. Character development has to be regulated, otherwise inconsistencies and contradictions are bound to crop up like weeds and undermine the character's structure. Ergo, the pairings ARE planned.  
><strong>

**Spaceman: Each story has unique encounters and with each encounter, new relationships form. Each of our stories is mixture of different universes with it's own theme and flavor and so some of the pairings for each story universe would be unique to those universes. Some pairings will be familiar, some are new, and some have caused us to re-evaluate certain pairings and remove them for the sake of streamlining. Suggestions will at least be Screened, but that's no guarantee they'll make it into the main story, though there's a chance some MIGHT make it into the final cut if we've overlooked something and we like the idea. People are bound to suggest certain pairings, which may be used in one story, but not in others. If the pairing is not your favorite, then either give it a chance or perhaps another of our stories will have your preferred pairing.**

***BIG GAME HUNT***

**Crysis 2 Soundtrack: Epilogue "Main Theme" – Hans Zimmer**

**Manhattan  
>August 9th, 23:18 EST<strong>

_'A month this stuff's been floating around, and already Manhattan looks like an alien planet,' _Virgil thought to himself as he made his way across the city, observing the radically-changed landscape. Snaking across the ground and up the sides of buildings like perverse tree roots, massive columns of black virulent matter snaked its way across the cityscape. Sometimes they were only as thick as your arm and you could just-as-easily step right over them and be on your merry way. Others were thick as soccer vans and thus for conventional land vehicles were impassable. While effectively _made _of disease, they were actually quite rigid and possessing great tensile strength, almost like metal but with a rubbery texture in some places. Lord knows he wasn't dumb enough to try and _taste _it.

That'd be fucking retarded, even by _their _standards. Poor bastards were the first to go when shit hit the fan. Like the fat guys who couldn't do cardio in Zombieland to save his life. _Literally_.

No wait, it was the _fat guys _who were the first to go, _then _the retarded. After that was the crippled, the ones that people tripped to buy themselves more time, and then the "sympathizers" who basically thought the Infected were sick and _not _beyond saving, and thought a hug and some kind words would help them regain their humanity. To the Infected, those people would collectively be known as "Lunch".

_'For whatever reason, Blackwatch received this _prototype..._' _Virgil took a moment to pause as that _particular _word left a foul taste in his mouth for some reason, _'at the spot of land closest to Roosevelt Island's northern side at East 83rd Street. Why they decided to haul it through the middle of the city by ground instead of air, I've got no clue, but this works out well for me,__' _he thought adjusting his bow and quiver on his back, every last arrow he could scrounge up amassed for the singular purpose of giving Blackwatch a _very _bad evening before bedtime. Not only was he toting arrows out the wazu, but he'd grabbed a decent amount of hand grenades and ammo for his silenced pistol. If all else failed, he had a combat knife strapped to his boot, and he _would _feed it blood before he died. _'With everything this city has thrown at me, somehow I've remained alive through all of it. Am I suicidal? Do I want to join my family, adopted and not in the next world, so badly I'll throw myself into the lion's den?' _he asked himself as he took a knee in the shadow of an office building at his side, the a warm summer's breeze brushing through his hair before he pulled his hood over his head. _'I guess we'll find out in a couple seconds,' _he said to himself as the all-too-familiar sound of APC tires against concrete met his ears in a low rumbling.

Binoculars in hand, red eyes descended onto the biggest column of Blackwatch he'd ever seen outside one of their bases at any one time. Two at the forefront and one at the rear, M1 Abrams Tanks painted Blackwatch black, their turrets swiveling from side to side, crushed everything in their path under their treads be they glass, concrete, or fallen pedestrian. Behind it, a quartet of M2 Bradley Armored Personnel Carriers in a diamond formation, surrounding a single white van the size of a bank's armored transport. With it being the center point of their formation, dozens of soldiers clad in black marching in pace with the slowly-moving vehicles for immediate response, it was obvious that the prior-liberated prototype was held inside the small speck of white in a cloud of black. All visible Blackwatch were fully armed, and the possibility existed that this much security was being used as a means to boost morale upon the successful escort of this convoy. With the way the Red Zone and its inhabitants, Infected or not, were kicking their asses, they probably needed a _lot _of good morale to keep themselves going, or a lot of trips to one of the other Zones for a night with the hookers.

_"Not if I have anything to say about it," _Virgil growled to himself as he slowly slid an arrow out of his quiver, notching it onto his bow string as he decided upon a target. Drawing his arm back, he suddenly shifted his aim upwards before letting the arrow fly. A small **_*whip* _**reaching Blackwatch from the bowstring snapping back, one soldier looked to the nearby rooftops on his left, before a fleshy mass suddenly fell atop the rearward APC with a loud **_*WHUMP*_**. The convoy stopping, all eyes turned to see the form of a still-flailing Flyer, a form of Infected derived from a common pigeon, its form broken and battered from the fall. Flopping about pitifully with an arrow through its chest, faster than the swiftest-thinking Blackwatch could say- "Black Arrow" -, the Flyer let out an ear-piercing screech on its death throes, some covering their ears while others winched, as the loud shriek cut through the night air. A few seconds later the mutated bird's cry died in its beak and it fell back dead as a doornail.

And that's when all hell broke loose.

The moment footsteps were heard from the surrounding alleys, Blackwatch's attention deviated from the center of their formation and branched outward, automatic gunfire pelting Infected Walkers like a horizontal rain of lead. Those that got too close got a gun stock to the skull or a bayonet to the face, but slowly the ground troopers were being overwhelmed. APCs opened up, and large soldiers with heavy weapons filed out, the common Blackwatch parting for them as belt-fed machine guns began pushing back the Walkers coming at them like the zombie horde. Moments later massive shells were loosed through the air from the tanks, the hulking forms of Hunters lunging down the streets intercepted one by one in an attempt to stop fuel from being added to the fire. This did not help however, when they began climbing the walls and moved up out of firing range, before dropping down and mauling either man or machine in their midst. Blood both Infected and not quickly sprayed through the air, the middle of the street soon coated in shades of red and black as countless fell to the horde. Infected either devoured man or beat against machine until it gave, one Hunter dipping his head inside a tank and ripping an operator's head off at the neck, only to receive heavy weapons fire that dropped it in a heap a moment later.

On top of all this this, from a position of near-impunity Virgil was loosing arrows and the occasional grenade from his perch, preventing either side from gaining too great a numerical superiority above the other. To most archers, the targets would be impossible to hit amidst the chaos, but then again, Virgil wasn't _most archers_. To anyone else it'd look like he was shooting randomly based on opportunity, but by keeping their numbers even, he was stretching out the fighting for as long as possible, letting each side bleed one another dry, which would allow him to pick off any stragglers at battle's end.

"Huh..." Virgil thought to himself as he watched the carnage he had so-justly wrought, the fighting showing no signs of slowing down. "I figured dropping an Infected in their laps would start a feeding frenzy, but I didn't know it'd work _that _well," he hummed to himself, so enraptured in the bloodbath he didn't notice the figure scaling the opposite side of the building until it leaped up and landed with a **_*thud*_**.

Whirling around and notching an arrow, the brunette was greeted with the sight of a vaguely-hominid-like wall of muscle, teeth, and claw, its enlarged muscles colored bright pink, while traces of black viral matter glowing orange marked its arms and back. At a speed belying its girth, the creature lunged with speed comparable to a motor vehicle, an arrow biting into its shoulder mid-lunge. Reaching over his shoulder for another arrow, Virgil realized too late that he was fresh out, and he was shoulder-tackled over the side before he could think to dodge. The two sailing through the air and compound bow leaving his hand, the beast wrapped its clawed hands around Virgil's body and attempted to bite him, the brunette beating its lunge aside with an adrenaline-fueled right hook as the two tumbled through the air. Seconds later the two hit the ground, Virgil using the Infected Hunter as a landing pad, the beast flat on its back while Virgil tumbled into the side of a car with a loud **_*BANG* _**back-first. Recovering from the shock, his vision blurred and cleared repeatedly until he focused on the sight of the creature lunging at him once more, intent on taking a bite out of his shoulder. Going for the combat knife strapped to his boot, the brunette still fueled on adrenaline slashed the beast in the side of the face, barely missing its eye but deflecting its initial lunge. Trying again, the beast's head met metal as the brunette dodged to the side once more, its teeth scraping the cloth from his hooded jacket, a hair's breadth away from breaking the skin. His knife biting into its chest, Vigil then stabbed it twice under the jaw, before getting another strike into its eye at its next lunge. Roaring as blood gushed out of its open maw like a fountain, the beast soon fell over read pinning the brunette beneath its weight, sandwiching him between itself and a growing puddle of blood.

"RRRGH! Fuck... YOU!" he swore as he pushed the beast off him with the last traces of adrenaline in his system as the threat passed, covered head to toe in blood as he finally made his way into the open air once again. "Fucking BITCH!" he shouted as he kicked the beast once more in the head for good measure. Hand going to his gun holster and giving the Hunter a quick double-tap, as he caught his breath, he eyed the street around him, most of the remaining Blackwatch getting killed off on the way down, while the rest were dying during his final struggle. Ripping his knife from the beast's skull and shaking the fresh blood from its edge, the brunette cracked his neck from side to side as he got over the fact he survived falling from a four-story building. Mind you he had a nice fleshy landing pad, but it still stood he'd had more action in the past ten minutes than most people do until they're eighteen. And he wasn't even _seven_teen yet. "Bloody hell... I can't believe I'm still alive," he said as he fell to one knee, coming down from his adrenaline high as the colors became less bright, the sounds less loud, and the scents less pungent. Grabbing a rag from his pocket and wiping some of the blood off his face, careful to keep it out of his eyes and mouth, the brunette took stock of the current situation.

Somehow he'd convinced every Infected in the area that Blackwatch was looking for a fight, and watched from the spectator's stand as they dug into an all-they-could-eat buffet. Between manpower, spent bullets, destroyed equipment, and wrecked vehicles, he'd likely cost Blackwatch thousands if not _millions _in high-end military equipment. Taking a few moments to reminisce, he realized just how well he'd paid Blackwatch back for the deaths of his family. With interest. On the more proactive note was he'd gone toe-to-toe with the kind of thing that made US Marines look like kindergarteners fed to an angry pit bull, and _won_. Apparently his ability to kill without hesitation wasn't limited only to humans, but to anything that breathed and bled as well. Speaking of which.

"Man, what the fuck..." he swore as he shed his blood-soaked jacket and dropped it onto the ground with an unceremonious **_*plop*_**, followed by his shoes which were completely saturated and made **_*squish*squish*squish* _**noises as he walked. Spitting out a glob of his _own _blood, with the adrenaline having come down he could finally feel the aches and pains in his ribs and back. He was also pretty sure he'd gotten a concussion in that landing, but not anything he couldn't shrug off after laying low for a while after achieving his objective. "Before I tend to that..." he said looking around, eyes landing on a now-shattered compound bow from when it had hit the ground. "This prototype better be worth it. I _liked _that bow," he swore as he limped forward, favoring his right side. Compared to the rest of the formation which was either grease stains on the ground or piles of scrap metal, the white van in the middle was left relatively unscathed aside from a few stray bullets in its armored plating, blood spatters, or dings from Infected running face-first into it like something out of Jackass. Coming to a stop at the driver's side window, he was greeted with the sight of the driver who, in the panic, had accidentally shot himself while fumbling for his weapon. Turning away from the site, not caring if he stepped on any bodies as he made his way to the back, he was soon greeted with the sight of a lone survivor, bleeding out and leaning against the doors. The man, a head taller than he was, weakly turned his head to the side, eyes looking over the blood-soaked teen before he suddenly found the end of a pistol jabbed between the lenses of his gas mask. Unable to utter a cry of protest before his brains were blown out the back of his skull **_*blat*_** the brunette shamelessly kicked the warm corpse aside before turning to the blood-soaked door.

"Million dollar van." **_*BANG* _**"Five dollar lock," he spoke plainly as he blew the piece of hardware off with one more bullet. Yanking the pieces away before throwing the doors open, he realized the van looked a lot bigger from the back than it did the front, the interior easily large enough for him to stand at full height instead of crouching down. The interior of the van was dark, its shadows seeming to shun even the light from the smoldering tanks before them. Of course Virgil wasn't afraid of the dark. He may've been as a child, maybe even some points in his teenage years when he was under emotional duress. But now, with what he'd seen, what he'd faced? No... He'd be more afraid of what could _actually _hurt him, instead of what he only _thinks _could hurt him. That the things that could hurt him were sometimes lurking _in _the dark was a moot point.

His red eyes squinting as they adjusted to the lack of light, he fumbled in his pockets for anything that survived the fall a few moments ago. While the plastic flashlight in his pocket had broken clean in two, the Zippo lighter he'd plucked from a Blackwatch's breast pocket remained surprisingly intact. Flipping the lid open with a flick of the wrist and spinning the flint wheel with his thumb, the small propane-borne flame burst to life in his hand, a dim orange glow forming a halo of light around him as he looked around. To the right he could now more-clearly see a bank of computer monitors, and miraculously enough they were still in working order, though with all the code and nonsensical equations flickering across the screen he may as well have been trying to read Latin. To his left, a large silver canister of some sort, and by the low hissing it made it seemed like it had seen better days. There weren't any kind of markings to say what was _inside _it, he was able to see a log of sorts; a pair of hexagonal C-shapes facing one another with little lines jutting from the backs. Aside from that, there was nothing to indicate what it'd come from. Hargreave & Rasch Biomedical (abbreivated H.R.B.) was supposed to be a pharmaceuticals company and the leading research company into next-generation medicine, so what did they have that Blackwatch wanted?

His question was answered when a low **_*hssssss* _**from the darkness met his ears, a thin streak of light shining downward from the ceiling to the floor, before a giant canister of some sort opened, vaguely reminding the teen of the first armor-changing both out of Dead Space. The interior was bathed in neon blue light and a cold fog spilled out onto the floor, but before his eyes could adjust enough to see the contents, a loud **_*SKREEEEEEEEEE* _**like the boiling of a tea kettle filled his left ear. Whirling to the side, the light from the now-open canister in the back of the vehicle revealed a number of pressure gauges, the needle bouncing in the red as the tank began to buckle outwards, the screeching becoming louder and louder before the glass faces of the gauges suddenly cracked. A moment later, part of the canister burst open, its contents, glittering like flakes of silver in the neon-blue lighting, spilled out of a large jagged crack and knocked him against the opposing wall, the canister's contents having been compressed. The force with which he was pushed back was staggering, so powerful in fact that when the back of his head hit the wall he began to fade out of consciousness almost instantly.

His back scraping the wall as he slid down, butt hitting the floor in an undignified heap, his head pounded as he felt blood dribbling from his nostril. The flakes of glittering silver now surrounded him so thickly he could barely see the interior of the truck around him, the strange sound of tinkling bells in his ear lulling him further into unconsciousness. Though he knew if he fell asleep there, and Blackwatch found him, there was a very good chance he'd never wake up again. Then again, wasn't that what he wanted deep down? A way out of his suffering?

_"I guess this is it... Huh..." _Virgil thought to himself as his eyes began to close. He was pretty sure the hit to his head was causing him to hallucinate, because it almost looked like the glittering silver mist was seeping _into _his wounds, in tendrils like snakes. He didn't _feel _anything, so it was probably all in his head, which in all likelihood was bleeding internally right about now. As his eyes drooped further shut, head falling forward, he heard something almost _slithering _out of the canister, wrapping around his feet and working its way up his legs.

**Integrating new DNA profile. Initializing...**

***BIG GAME HUNT***

**Manhattan**  
><strong>August 10, 00:13 EST<strong>

_'Ghuh... Anyone get the number on the thing that hit me last night?' _Virgil groaned to himself as he began to regain consciousness. **BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED** _'What the deuce?!' _the brunette blinked as those three words appeared immediately before his line of sight. Leaning forward to get up from whatever it was he was laying on, his head swam causing him to fall back onto what it was he was laying on. _'The hell is going on?' _Virgil asked as his head panned around, greeted by a white ceiling and bright florescent lighting. Blinking the light out of his eyes once again, opting to move only his eyes instead of his head, he was able to focus on a blue polarized screen of some sort right in front of his nose, vaguely resembling an insect's compound eye, whereas the entirety of his head was encased in some kind of tight-fitting helmet. _'Thank God I'm not claustrophobic.'_ Small panels on the compound eye-like screen in front of him flickering to translucent, the polarized screen in front of him seemingly disappeared, allowing him to get a better look at his surroundings. He appeared to be in an operating room of some sort, completely pristine which should've been impossible... unless...

_'Fuck!' _he swore as he tried to leap up, only to find his progress impeded by the large magnetic clamps synched to his wrists, ankles, and waist, pinning him to a large metal slab. His struggling seemed to set off some kind of alarm, because moments later a man covered head to toe in white surgical scrubs entered the room through a set of double doors across the room from him. The man's eyes widened, before running to the intercom and making a call. A minute into Virgil's struggling, a man who was wearing Blackwatch colors, but different from the grunts he'd killed strode into the room. The man, maybe 5'8", wearing a black form-fitting uniform with additional plating on his chest, yellow stripes running over his shoulders, around his biceps, and down the sides of his legs. The man had a gas mask with blue illuminated lenses covering his entire head, a communication's device strapped to his left forearm.

"So, our would-be thief is finally awake," the man said in a condescending tone, like that of a person who thought they had all the cards. The fact Virgil stole their suit proved he did _not _have all the cards. "I don't know how you managed to lead our men into an Infected ambush, but I promise you," he said pulling a shock baton from his side. "Your little crusade ends _here_... Black Arrow," he said with a chuckle before he drove the baton into Virgil's ribs. Arcs of electricity ran over the suit and through his body, his back arcing against his restraints, suppressing his pained cry into an angry growl before the man eased up and let him fall on his back. "We found your bow broken in half at the scene. Without it, you're nothing more than a shoplifter wearing stolen merchandise," the man said twirling his shock baton in his hand until he turned to the man in the surgical scrubs. "As for _you_, you said this guy would be sedated for three hours. Mind telling me what's _wrong_ with this picture?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but the nanobots that bonded to his system, both before and after he put on the suit, have already filtered the anesthetic from his system," the man answered looking at his clipboard.

_'Nanobots? Suit?' _Virgil questioned as he looked down at himself, his body encased in some kind of black muscle-like suit with silver buckles where the bands of material connected. Before he could get a more-clear look at himself, he was jabbed in the side again by the Blackwatch officer's shock stick. He wouldn't give the man the satisfaction of hearing him scream, so he just clenched his teeth and held his ground.

"Fine then. Lets just pull this little shit out of the suit and take back what's ours. Command already has a test pilot lined up, and its _my _ass on the line if anything happens."

"I'm sorry, sir, but the suit has integrated a new DNA Profile. Until we can scrub the hardware, even if we _did _get the suit off of him, it wouldn't respond to anyone else until we cleared the operational data."

"Well now, who said he needs to be _alive _when we get the suit off him in order to scrub it?" the man questioned darkly, his eyes turning to the suit-wearing individual as he fought once more against his shackles. "Don't bother trying to break free, those restraints can hold even _Superman_. You aren't going anywhere."

_'I call bullshit,' _Virgil thought as he flexed his arms once more. The shackles weren't mounted to the table _itself_, but instead mounted to components mounted _to _the table. As one of the corners began to buckle, a weird feeling overcame him and he ceased his struggling.

**System Override** a synthetic voice, recognized as the same from the truck before he'd lost consciousness, said into Virgil's ear. **Maximum Power increase the suit operator's strength through a mixture of performance-enhancing narcotics readily absorbed into the bloodstream, **the suit's onboard AI, or whatever it was, explained as chemical formulas Virgil couldn't even _begin _to comprehend displayed sporadically in front of him in white angular font.** Use of Maximum Power requires suit energy. **At this, a white horizontal bar divided into twenty vertical appeared in the lower right corner of his vision, a percentile reading **100% **set to its immediate left.

_'I'm wondering why that voice now sounds like _me_, but only if I were a robot,' _Virgil thought to himself as he processed the information presented to him. Under normal circumstances he would _never _use performance-enhancers, but given Blackwatch was going to try and _skin _him, he figured- _'Why the hell not?'_ Muscles flexing inside the suit, a tone of **Power Mode **rung in his ear, those very same muscles beginning to bulge as he pulled up with his wrists and ankles once again, the sound of groaning metal music to his ears, an ominous dirge to his captors. Focusing entirely on his right arm, while he was unable to break the shackle on his right wrist, what he _was _able to do was pull the shackle's _mounting _out of the table, freeing his arm at the expense of the weighty accessory now on his wrist.

"Don't let him escape!" the captain said as he lunged forward uncaring of the tray of surgical tools he knocked over, wrapping his body around Virgil's arm and pinning it down to the table once more, while the lab tech quickly filled a syringe with suspicious clear fluid. Running over and attempting to drive it between the fibrous composition of the suit, Virgil's new found strength allowed him to throw the captain sidelong across his chest and into the lab tech, driving them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. His right hand once more freed, he proceed to tear the left shackle's mounting out of the table, magnetic clamps dying when its wires were separated. The two getting up, they turned only to receive the formerly-confining metal shackles to their faces with hasty throws, noses breaking under the assault and blood spurting onto their shirts.

_'Holy shit, is this the same stuff they dope _Bane _up on?!' _Virgil questioned as he looked at the two unconscious Blackwatch on the floor, before glancing at the suit's energy reading. **87****%**. Turning his attention to the shackle around his waist, aiming to tear the two halves apart through sheer strength, the double doors to the room suddenly burst open, two Blackwatch with assault rifles storming in. The pair took appraisal of the situation before them, from the knocked over tray of surgical tools, the unconscious Blackwath on the floor, their eyes finally landing on the suit-clad figure who was two-fifths of the way free.

**System Override** the voice said once again, and for some reason time seemed to slow, the Blackwatch's attention shifting back to him as though they were moving through molasses. **Maximum Armor alters the Nanosuit's outer surface to absorb damage and increase operator survivability in combat. Armor Mode requires suit energy. **By the end of the explanation, the suit's energy reading was at **91%**, reaching **92% **before the two opened fire. Before their bullets bit into the suit, Virgil felt a ripple running down his head, across his chest, and then to his extremities, before the ensemble seemed to _clench _around his frame. Shielding his face with his hands out of instinct, what felt like golf ball-sized hail pelting his skin was met with the sounds of chaos all around, the deluge of metal ricocheting off the suit and into the surroundings, kicking up implements, shattering tiling, and destroying very expensive-looking medical equipment.

_'At least I know what this thing's called now,' _he thought to himself as he curled into a ball and weathering out the storm of lead.

Speaking of which, one very important system in particular must've gotten hit, because a few seconds into the shootout the shackles around his waist and ankles retracted back into the slab, gunfire cutting out moments later once they realized their bullets simply bounced off. A quick glance at his energy reading showed the suit had held up at the expense of being depleted to **12% **under continued fire; an impressive technological feat since while wearing any other known material he would've been turned into Swiss cheese. Rolling forward to his feet and kicking off the slab, the brunette lunged with a chime of **Power Mode** in his ears right before his hands clasped onto the faces of the two. Bringing them both to the floor, from a kneeling position he lifted the two's heads to shoulder level before slamming them into the linoleum tiling with dual **_*THWACK*_**s, a myriad of cracks splintering outwards like spiderwebs from beneath their heads and they ceased to move, blood beginning to form small puddles beneath them from the obvious blunt trauma they'd been subjected to.

_'Energy's down to six percent. I'll have to hold off on the instant superpowers and give it time to recharge,' _he said as he grabbed one of the assault rifles left behind. As he ran down the hall, streams of code flickered across his visor, before another gauge appeared in the lower right corner of his vision, situated above the Energy gauge which was slowly refilling. First to appear above the right end of the bar was a horizontal bullet-shaped icon, and to the left of it was some kind of ammo counter reading **02****/50**, obviously meant to be an ammo counter. Above the bar was a silhouette vaguely shaped like the gun in his hands, while further above it was a vertical list of weapon data labeled things like **ACCURACY, RATE OF FIRE, MOBILITY, DAMAGE, **and **RANGE**, with horizontal bars divided into vertical segments appearing beside each one. Above this data, which was pretty concurrent with what he knew of assault rifles from Halo, was a label reading **Superior Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR)**.

_'Huh, makes me think of the hand-based weapon recognition thing Master Chief has in Halo,' _he thought to himself as he got used to the new suite of data in his face. As he made his way through the halls, the bulk of Blackwatch probably just outside, yet _more _code began to flicker across his visor. This time it centered in the lower left and assuming a circular shape, the interior developing something akin to an overhead map of the area he was in, floors colored black, walls grey, and what he assumed were doors highlighted in white. Moments later a digital bearing indicator flickered into existence around it, though at the moment he was more concerned with the trio of of yellow dots making their way right around the corner. With only two bullets and this form of weapon still being foreign to him, he'd be hard-pressed if they were wearing body armor. Thinking quickly, he ducked into a recess into the wall to his left, ducking under a water fountain as he pressed himself as far to the left as he could.

**System Override **the suit spoke up once again at the moment the trio of yellow dots peeked around the corner, making their way towards him. **The Stealth Meter indicates the level of enemy awareness**. Eyes shifting to the overhead map on his left, a vertical bar blinked into existence on its left, the bottom quarter marked yellow and slowly filling. Blackwatch closing in at full sprint, he felt a strange tingle run across the entirety of his body before to his shock, it began turning translucent before his eyes, the field of invisibility extending to his weapon as well. As the three rushed past him, completely unaware of his presence, he saw that it wasn't so much he became _invisible_, as he was optically camouflaged, evident by the layer of small hexagonal panels covering his frame and creating a _lensing _effect of sorts. **Cloak provides ****temporary invisibility to avoid detection and infiltrate enemy positions. Movement while cloaked rapidly drains suit energy.**

_'Rapidly is right,' _Virgil thought to himself as he got out of his little nook and began sidling along the wall. _'My energy is almost gone,' _he said as his eyes turned to the descending energy gauge. Opening the nearest door he'd reached, he entered swiftly before silently closing it behind him, killing the lights with a flick of a switch as he became visible a moment later. _'Hopefully I can stay hidden long enough for it to charge again,' _he said as the Energy gauge blinked a red **0% **in his face.

Looking around for a place to hide, a yellow dot heading his way on the overhead radar was the only warning he had of one of the three patrolling Blackwatch splitting off from the others and coming right at him. The man opening the door and panning his gun-mounted flashlight across the room, common sense to flick on the light switch eluded him as he slowly stepped forward, keeping his trigger finger ready in case something jumped out at him from one of the corners. Seeing something black in the corner, he jerked the iron sights to eye level, only to relax slightly when he found an abandoned assault rifle in sight and nothing else. He'd seen the mess made in the surgical lab, and he wasn't confident in his chances against something that could do _that _bare-handed.

Had he been more attentive, he would've noticed the slightly askew grate to the air vent behind the room's lone office chair, and the shadow slowly creeping into its depths.

***BIG GAME HUNT***

_'Seriously? An air vent? I can't believe this is actually working,' _Virgil thought to himself as he army crawled through an air vent about two feet by two feet, avoiding making any unnecessary noise to keep up the element of stealth. The fact that it was on ground level no less also surprised him, but he was simply thankful the Blackwatch didn't suspect anything and left as quickly as he did. In a space as confined as that, it'd be easy enough to line up a shot with almost no chance to dodge. The radar on his HUD must've worked through sound waves or something, because the moment he entered the ducts everything else on it became clear aside from the duct itself. The "Stealth Meter" had even whittled down to a couple white bars at the bottom, showing for a time he had avoided detection.

Just _how _this suit could tell how-aware his enemies were of his location, he had no idea. Clearly, with all the tech and innovations that had gone into this suit, the cost for R&D _alone _must've been staggering. He shuddered to imagine how many zeros were on the price tag for this thing, though he imagined it may've been something more than seven figures. While he knew the thing's _name_, "Nanosuit", what truly unsettled him was when the word "nanobots" had been brought up. Obviously he _wasn't _hearing things when that voice said something about a DNA profile, and again when the cloud of what he now-suspected to be those very same nanobots entering his body through his wounds. He could only suspect that the Nanosuit _somehow_, put itself onto his body, 'cause he sure as hell didn't remember _putting _the thing on.

_'Alright first thing's first. I get to the highest point I can, map out just where they dragged me, and then hit the drink before making for the mainland,' _the brunette thought to himself. After wandering through the vents for several minutes, occasionally hearing echoed whispers of the Blackwatch saying something about their asses being left to the firing squads if they didn't find him, he eventually made his way to the central column of the air conditioning shafts, and proceeded to make his way to the roof. Normally he'd be hard-pressed to navigate a space like that, but this suit apparently boosted his strength exponentially, even when _not _giving him performance-enhancing narcotics.

The sound of night air meeting his ears, or whatever allowed him to hear with that bucket over his head, he eventually saw the duct above him curve slightly. With the final stretch right in front of him he more-carefully made his way up. Hazarding a peak over the edge, he saw the lip of the vent right in front of him, thankful he didn't have to find his way through the AC unit _itself_. It was still dark out, but the giant lights around the Blackwatch base had most of the ground level illuminated from what he could tell. Scuttling forward a little more and bracing his feet against the back wall, he grasped two of the vertical bars in each hand, and the Nanosuit reading his body language pumped him with performance-enhancers, allowing him to push the grate out of its moorings. Carefully setting the thing down and crawling out, without even thinking about it he dismounted into a combat roll, keeping himself low to the ground as he quickly scanned the area.

Seeing a lone Blackwatch waiting for him, his heart almost stopped before he realized the man was facing _away _from him, and that he wasn't yet aware of his presence. His first compulsion was to find a ladder or something and make his way down, but remembering this was the probable-highest point of the base, if he left this guy alive it'd probably bite him in the ass later. Tiptoeing forward, he slowly formulated the plan of attack in his mind. If this played out even _remotely _like Stealth RPGs, making too much noise during the "Takedown" would _not _be in his best interests.

_'Alright... If I remember correctly, it takes 1200 foot-pounds of torque to snap a human neck...' _he thought to himself as he recalled an episode of 1000 Ways to Die. _'All I have to do is get right behind him, cover his mouth, and hope I can snap his neck before he raises the alarm.' _Blinking his eyes in his helmet, he wondered when he began to think so casually about sneaking up on a guy before snapping his neck, before realizing... it didn't really matter. This, like every other major event in his life, was yet another crucible for him to overcome.

Rising to full height behind the man, the brunette's foot found the back of the guy's knee, forcing him down with his head at chest level. Wrapping his left arm under the man's armpit and grasping the right shoulder tightly, his free hand went to the side of the man's face before twisting his skull with a low **_*crack*_**. To his surprise, the Nanosuit-augmented strength had caused him to spin the man's head around a full 180 degrees. A moment of shock overcoming him at the sight, his grip on the man slackened before he fell flat on where his face _would've _been if his head were still facing forward. His head lolled listlessly to the side and he was sprawled out limp across the ground. Obviously, this was a headache that would _not _go away with a couple aspirin.

_'Okay... Note to self: Be careful when giving people _hugs_,' _the brunette thought to himself. If he could twist a man's head like a twist-top with one arm, he could only imagine how many bones he could break with something like a bear hug. _'Probably snap their spine is what would happen,' _he thought to himself as he Cloaked, peeking his head over the edge of he roof and peering downwards.

**System Override. Systems online. Multiple threats detected.**

_'Naw, ya think?' _Virgil thought sarcastically, before an unfamiliar stinging sensation began burning the insides of his eyes. Shaking his head side to side as he squinted painfully, blinking the tears from his eyes as his sight began to clear, everything in front of him was suddenly given a boost of clarity, almost as if he were seeing real life in High-Def compared to... whatever came before High-Def. Blinking his eyes a couple more times as the stinging began to abate, as he focused on the small black figures dotting the base, small empty triangles began to appear above their heads, and after focusing on them for a few seconds, the small triangles were filled in.

**The tactical visor provides increased battlefield awareness. Scan for hostile entities, weapons, and equipment. The visor's zoom function allows you to observe from a safe distance.**

_'So... what, I've got nanobots swimming in my eyeball fluid now?' _the brunette thought to himself, wondering just how thoroughly he was being violated. Shoving that thought aside for now, he learned that by focusing on far-off targets he could "zoom in" on them as though looking through a scope, and that he could "zoom out" by widening the scope of his focus. _'I can worry about my health later. Right now I've to tag as many of these guys as I can, maybe blow some shit up, and make a break for the water,' _he thought to himself as he looked around. _'There!' _Off to this left there was a dock with a few boats tied down, and just beyond it was the open water. _'And all that's between here and there, are psychotic Neo-Nazis with automatic weapons,' _he thought dryly. _'Sorry_ _baby-killer, but I'll be taking this,' _he thought as he unsynched the knife strapped to the guys' boot, as well as his grenades.

***BIG GAME HUNT***

Taking the next few minutes to get acquainted with the Tactical Visor before going groundside, he was thankful it didn't require Suit Energy to operate, meaning he could take his time without having to worry about it. When he "tagged" a person with it, they were surrounded by a faint outline as well as the distance between him and them in meters, even when they stepped behind an object. However, given this was a prototype, it could only "tag" about a dozen people before it began cycling out the oldest entries for the new ones. Whenever a tagged individual wasn't in his immediate line of sight, an arrow with a measure of meters displayed in his peripherals, ensuring he never lost track of them for too long. Vehicles and weapons on the other hand were a separate matter, as he was able to tag the four M1 Abrams and a number of weapon creates without detracting from the headcount. At the moment the four tanks were unmanned, the bulk of the Blackwatch presence there keeping their eyes on all the exits to ensure he didn't escape, and while he was tempted to take one and _drive _his way out, he had no idea how to _drive _a tank. The number of guards on the roof was minimal since the chances of him escaping from there were the lowest, and even if he _did _manage to hijack the singular AH-64D Apache Longbow _-which the suit's scanners identified-_, the anti-airguns on the ramparts would ensure he didn't get too far.

_'Speaking of which...' _Virgil thought as he yanked the cyclic control stick right out of the chopper's floor before tossing it in the back seat. _'Now I can make my way out of here without worrying about_ this _thing._' Taking another quick look around, the gates locked up tight with heavy guard presence, he turned his view in the opposite direction from them and saw a makeshift dock with a number of boats moored down. While tempted to snag one and head for another island, not only would he have Blackwatch on his ass, but the US Navy as well keeping him from trying to leave without the right access codes. The only sensible option was to make for the water, swim up the coast, then make his way back to Dana and hopefully get some advice on what to do next.

Making his way to the edge of the roof, he saw a ladder leading to one of the lower levels, and using Cloak made his way down, sticking to the shadows until he finally got to ground level. Not every single spot could be illuminated, so he took advantage of the darkness to remain hidden as he snuck around patrols and hid in the shadows of trucks, his Tactical Visor saving him from being caught by surprise by a stray patrol in the darkness. His "Stealth Meter" still relatively low, meaning the Blackwatch were not yet aware of his presence, but were keeping an eye out for him, he cloaked and made his way over to one of the weapon crates, gathering a few blocks of C4 before ducking underneath one of the tanks to appraise his arsenal.

_'One combat knife, three grenades, four blocks of C4, and one detonator,' _he counted, the nanobots apparently in his eyes allowing him greater vision in the dark. Peeking out from underneath, being sure to use Cloak to keep himself hidden, he swore under his breath when he saw that one of the Blackwatch had noticed the missing C4 he'd just taken, and to reflect this, the Stealth Meter gained more yellow mass. _'Its too dangerous to try and snag more, so I'll just have to make due.'_

Synchronizing the blocks of C4 to the detonator in his hand, he skulked his way around the tanks, sliding into each one and adhering a block of plastic explosive to the undersides of the controls. He wasn't sure if this would completely destroy them or not, but he figured if he blew up the controls, and the explosion remained contained, he'd do enough damage that they wouldn't be able to fire tank shells at him, let alone chase him. Repeating the process on the other two tanks, as he made his way to prime the explosives from inside the fourth, while out of cloak one of the Blackwatch happened to peer into the tank and got an eyeful of him with his hands in the cookie jar. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the guy by his collar and dragged him in before jamming the blade of his knife between the man's ribs and into his heart, hoping to remain hidden. With the last of his strength however, the man was able to draw his pistol, aiming it directly in Virgil's face. The teen batted the barrel to the side at the last moment, but at that moment the loud **_*BANG* _**of propellant detonating rung through the tank and out through the top hatch. The next moment alarms began blaring loudly, putting the entire base on alert, and if _that _wasn't bad enough, as the bullet bounced around the interior of the tank, it managed to catch him in the back. Apparently without Armor Mode, the suit was still vulnerable to firearms at close range.

_'Dammit!' _he swore as he climbed out of the tank, and after ducking for cover, chucked the last remaining block of C4 towards a cluster of Blackwatch heading his way, before pressing the detonator. With a quartet of loud **_*KABOOM*_**, three of the tanks went up in in columns of flame and smoke, while by the screams he'd managed to catch at least a few of them in the blast. A lance of dulled pain shooting up his side, Virgil didn't have time to watch as the suit sealed itself shut, knowing he'd have to find a new place to hide. Looking around, he saw an unmanned truck with a canopy he could take shelter in for a few seconds. Using Cloak to remain unseen for the half-second it took his frame to get to the top of the tank, he dropped a grenade into the vehicle's interior after removing the pin, and five seconds later when he'd dove into the back of the truck, the grenade exploded. While not as glorious as the C4 explosions, the grenade did its job of rendering the tank completely inoperable quite admirably.

_'Alright... Stay calm... You can still get out of this. You just have to remain calm, ignore the bullet in your side, and find a way to hit the water,' _Virgil told himself as he peeked up from the darkness of the truck's canopy, watching as Blackwatch scoured the area on high alert in an attempt to find him. _'Stealth Meter's completely red, so I'm pretty fucking sure they know I'm here.'_

**System Override. Maximum Speed stimulates heightened reflexes by supplying more oxygen to the brain and muscular tissue through the use of nano-bot-induced hyper-accelerated blood flow. Use of Maximum Speed requires suit energy.**

_'Super speed, huh? Well, no time like the present,' _Vergil thought to himself as he pressed one foot to the back of the truck, assuming a starting position before he "willed" the system to activate. **Speed Mode**. Shooting out of the truck like a bullet, as soon as he met the open air, he noted that not only was he moving faster, but the world around him was moving slower, the gathered Blackwatch turning their heads toward him as though they were moving through maple syrup. Rolling as he hit the ground, kicking off again he left cracks in the ground, but paid them not mind as he made a beeline for the water. A number of Blackwatch ran at him like quarterback gunning for the enemy running back, but with how slow they were moving, it was child's play to take his knife in a reverse-handed grip and run the blade across their throats as they approached him. Even the bullets were coming at him in slow motion, but with his enhanced speed none of them even hit him, albeit they came pretty close; it wasn't so much he was dodging _them_, but rather they were being aimed where he was _at_, not where he was going to be. One final line of soldiers forming a wall in front of the dock, they began spraying hollow point rounds in his direction, only for him to dodge sidelong out of harm's way and behind another crate. Taking one of his remaining two grenades in hand and "cooking" it for three seconds, he chucked it through the air before taking off after it, the explosion knocking away the soldiers and allowing him to make for the water. Tossing his last grenade into the only boat there, he dove into the water as time seemed to resume its normal pace. With only **5****% **suit energy left of the full charge he started out with, he reinforced his body with **Armor Mode **right before the grenade went off, the grenade accompanied by the boat's fuel tanks making an even larger explosion.

***BIG GAME HUNT***

Elsewhere, a cold-eyed figure with ashy corpse-like skin had watched the... festivities, with some degree of interest as billowing columns of smoke rose from the Blackwatch base. Despite the cover of darkness, the skulking figure's sharper-than-normal eyes allowed him to keep track of the slight lensing effect their body made under pseudo-invisibility. While he had a form of infared vision in his arsenal, the suit itself actually seemed to diffuse heat signatures evenly into the ground, making him or her harder to track through that method.

Still, what did he care if that "secret weapon" he'd just picked up radio chatter about had been stolen before he could get to it? Whoever _had _gotten to it clearly didn't agree with Blackwatch's policies, otherwise they wouldn't have left a couple-million-dollar-mess in their wake for the taxpayers to clean up. The black-and-silver figure had disappeared almost entirely into the water instead of killing everything like _he _would have. But then again...

There was only one of him. For the time being anyway.

"Not like that cheap suit could've stopped me anyway," the monster known as Mercer chuckled as he turned away from the smoldering wreck, leaping with such force he left cracks in the roof he was standing on, his form sailing through the air like a bird of prey.

***BIG GAME HUNT***

**NeoNazo356: Like with most Crysis-based fanfiction, there was the "tutorial" aspect of it when the OC first acquired the Nanosuit, though I tried to put a new spin on it. Then again, I don't comb the site for Crysis-centric fanfiction, so this could either be exactly the same as in other stories or completely different, I don't know. I used the Nanosuit 1 powers because the addition of Maximum Power and Maximum Speed on demand add another "dimension" to the suit's usage in-story, even though those functions are streamlined in Crysis 2 into the general movement mechanics.**

**Spaceman: The Nanosuit is composed of alien nano-materials, which allows it move in ways beyond normal armour. In Prophet's flashback it's clearly meant to come off in parts instead of being a one-piece. The many pieces form a singular powerful entity and it explains what Virgil experienced before he passed out. The implications that suit put itself on him will be explored in this story.  
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**NeoNazo356: Also, the reason I didn't go very in-depth about the prototype Nanosuit's appearance when he first woke up, is because story-wise, Virgil had more pressing matters to attend to than staring at himself in a full-body mirror; that'll come next-chapter. Basically, if you woke up in a prison, and RIGHT then there was a mass escape attempt, would you rather take a few minutes to look yourself over, or run like hell? The premise is you've been wrongly imprisoned.  
><strong>


	6. Zoning Out

**NeoNazo356: First off, a bit of fanmail. Its from an Anonymous Review, so I wasn't sure it was worth responding to, but this seemed like a point that needed getting across. From mastermind (Guest)- "mastermind:first off why does it have a prototype cross and when will the young justice cross show?" There wasn't really anything after that, so the "first off" was kinda redundant.  
><strong>

** Spaceman: The story may be a crossover of Young Justice and Crysis, but there are many other series woven into it. It creates a diverse world that keeps the reader wondering what will happen and what are the connecting relationships. The story is not a straight linear crossover, which is why I hope it will be interesting for the readers.**

** NeoNazo356: When writing a crossover, you shouldn't limit yourself to two IP; not unless you WANT to limit yourself anyway. The world that this story takes place in is Earth-16; Static Shock, Justice League, Batman Beyond, etc. take place on Earth-12. The events and setting of Prototype 2 is the environment that the OC Virgil Valentine comes out into his own in. Hargreave-Rasch Biomedical exists within the same world as Young Justice, but the Nanosuit Project is only in its infant stages, well before the Nanosuit 1.0 or 2.0 seen in the Crysis trilogy of games. Other "pseudo-crossovers" are set to take place, adding to the web of interconnections between IP, which have been tailor-fit to take place in Earth-16. If it were ONLY Young Justice/Crysis, then the only addition to YJ would be the Ceph and Cell as antagonizing forces, but with Prototype thrown into the mix it adds the Blackwatch and Evolved factions, therefore preventing the story from stagnating, and thus making it difficult to predict. You take a Naruto/Negima crossover STRAIGHT and you're bound to see the same ideas being used over and over and over again, to the point that the storytelling begins to stagnate and the stories tend to blend together until you can scarcely tell them apart; a problem I've seen a number of times in the past. In the case of The Behemoth by SilentFang (a fresh take on the genre in my opinion), introducing the Rokushiki/Six Styles from One Piece adds new history, new techniques, and therefore new outcomes. The reference to Sekirei was a nice cameo as well.**

** Spaceman: All this is to add enjoyment, both for us as the creators and you as the readers. I love reading crossovers, but I truly love mega-crossovers for there diversity. Take a chance to enjoy our mixture of ingredients.**

***ZONING OUT***

**Manhattan  
>August 10, 02:01 EST<strong>

After hitting the water, Virgil was able to confirm something very important if he was going to wind up keeping the suit; it came equipped with a re-breather. Of course the air began to get a little _stale _after five, ten minutes tops, forcing him to re-surface before he began breathing in the same crud over and over. The environment inside his helmet immediately freshened when he broke the water's surface, to which he was thankful as he pulled himself onto dry land. The HUD also came equipped with a clock, but since he had no idea how to actually _set _it, it kept blinking **12:00 **over and over. But there was time to fix that later. Despite miraculously not getting hit on the way out, the one bullet from the tank still caught him in the side, and while the suit was probably what was dulling the pain, he needed to get it removed ASAP before it caused some kind of complication.

Not only had he survived the ambush, but he'd get to bring back the stolen prototype with him. He just hoped he didn't burn the bridge between him and Dana with the way he stormed off like that and screamed in her face.

Under normal circumstances, walking through the city was like asking to get shot, or eaten, or shot _and _eaten not necessarily in that order, but after figuring out the "tells" that the Nanosuit read to interpret what he wanted it to do, the trip back into the city was infinitely more pleasant. Running while in **Cloak** chewed through suit energy very rapidly, whereas standing still ate through it at a much more sedate pace, so on the way back he was able to find just the right speed that kept him cloaked for a decent period while allowing him a decent clip across open ground.** Speed Mode** could've had him cover so much ground very quickly, but slow and steady won the race, and he had to circle around a few times to make sure no-one or nothing was following him back. **Power Mode** allowed him to kick over something as heavy as a small car, which proved very useful when a Hunter tried to get the jump on him. Something else he learned which was nice to know, was that if he allowed the suit to recharge after a state of near-depletion, it recharged faster than if he depleted the charge entirely.

Also, now that he wasn't being shot, he could finally get a better look of the thing he was wearing, a surprisingly intact storefront window allowed him to do just that. The entirety of the suit's structure was comprised of bands of black metallic fibers with silver metal buckles on the ends that stretched and flexed whenever he moved, the two clearly meant to emulate muscle tissue and tendons in their design. Over the non-moving parts of his forearms and shins were plates of gray-camouflage-colored armor, the set on his chest segmented so he could bend and twist, though for some reason it put a little too much emphasis on his crotch for his liking. He also didn't want to sound like every girl that ever tried on a pair of jeans, but he wondered if the suit made his ass look big with how his gluttes were emphasized as well, though the cool spine-like armor running own his back that likely held the suit together looked pretty badass. Lastly was the helmet, which for all intents and purposes to _him _looked like something from last year's Dead Space. The sides and back had very little plating to speak of, the majority of it focused on his face, said plating divided into a series of horizontal strips sub-divided down the middle, a trio of blue slats being what allowing him to see. The fact that after fumbling around it for a button or something that'd let him take it off and get some fresh air, only for it to instead collapse into a compacted form set atop his sternum, only cemented the sentiment it was like something out of Dead Space. While the plating of the helmet had done that, it revealed a balaclava-like mask with clear round eye lenses and a breather-like apparatus over his mouth and nose, which peeled away at the back of his head before tightening up and laying atop his collapsed head-armor.

The moment he touched it again, both parts of the helmet snapped shut over his head, and it was a wonder none of his hair got caught up in it.

After the way he pissed in Blackwatch's cornflakes, took a dump on their front lawn, and spit in their collective faces back at their base, he could understand why they would think something like this could turn the tide against the Infected occupation. However, super-advanced piece of combat hardware or not, it was still only one suit, and the radio chatter_ clearly_ said it was only a prototype not even out of the Beta stage. Still, all things considered, they'd probably use the thing to kill more _civilians_ than they did Infected, so it was _probably _for the greater good of mankind that he stole it before Blackwatch got their hands on it.

He could almost swear he saw a copy of Hitler's biography sitting in that one office with the absurdly-large air vent, but that was beside the point at the moment.

***ZONING OUT***

The "Abandoned Office Building of Solitude", as he and Dana had so affectionately called it, was your typical run-of-the-mill white-walled office building in the middle of a large metropolitan area. Twenty stories in height, a number of black "vines" had already begun making their way skyward over its exterior, some punching through windows adding a jungle-like feel, it was almost completely unrecognizable from its original splendor since the smoke-choked air had painted it a dull shade of grey, but to Virgil it was home. Making his way around to the back and coming across a manhole cover, he lifted it open with ridiculous ease before dropping down into the maintenance tunnels parallel to the building, and making his way into the basement through a hole in the wall, he began making his way up the _very _long flight of stairs up to the 14th floor. It was a pain in the ass dragging that portable generator up that far, but Dana was rather adamant about_ not _being on the 13th floor or anywhere beneath it.

After arriving at his destined floor, he was surprised that he wasn't winded in the slightest, but attributed it to the suit, or maybe the nanobots now swimming in his system. The elevators had long since been destroyed in the chaos, so it didn't really matter when the power cut off. Making his way towards the south part of the floor he and Dana called home, he tiptoed his way over the hidden early-warning alarms; lengths of fishing wire stretched across ankle-level connected to bundles of tin cans in case anyone managed to sneak that far up there. Keeping quiet was what had kept the Flyers from pulling a kamikaze on their living space, so he didn't think anything of it when he silently walked up to Dana who was sitting in front of her map of the Red Zone, fisting her hair hair as she swore beneath her breath.

_'Probably thinks I'm dead right about now,' _Virgil thought as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Dana," he spoke up getting her attention, the voice that came out of his helmet a synthesized version of his own that sounded more like a trained soldier than it did his 16-year-old self.

"Uwah!" she shrieked in a very undignified manner as she grabbed the closest thing to her, a keyboard **_*Crack*_** and clocked him over the head with it, breaking it in half. The keyboard, not his head.

"Ow! Bitch! It's me!" Virgil shouted as he fumbled with the sides of his helmet, the woman about to clock him again before it finally collapsed.

"V-Virgil?" Dana gaped as she dropped the keyboard, eyes wide in shock.

"What's with that look? You look like you've seen a ghost," Virgil chuckled before a lance of pain shot up his side. "Gah! Sonuva-" he swore as he grabbed his side. It had stung a bit every couple minutes on the way up, for the mostpart a dull throbbing pain, but it suddenly chose _now _to get worse.

"Virgil, are you alright?" Dana asked as she began to fuss with his hair before her attention turned back to the suit. "And what on Earth are you _wearing_?"

"Funny story... One I'd be more than happy to share after you help me remove a bullet," Virgil answered before he realized something. "Shit! How do I take this thing off?"

***ZONING OUT***

After a _very _embarrassing five-to-ten minutes of trying to find out how to take off the suit, he eventually discovered that with twin button presses on both sides of the chest armor, the front of its upper body would separate from the adjoining "tissue", allowing him to step out of it like a wetsuit. Speaking of which, the clothing he'd worn underneath had been pressed so tightly to his skin they needed a spatula _-or the closest possible equivalent- _to peel it away from him. Ignoring the pressed-clothing marks lining his skin, and the myriad of bruising from where not _all _of the two-man firing squad's force had been absorbed, Dana got to work boiling some water and giving some surgical pliers a nice long soak. As he told her about the ambush, waking up in the Nanosuit, and the subsequent flight/swim out of Blackwatch's clutches, she went to work dressing his wound. Because they always used guerrilla hit-and-run tactics on whatever Blackwatch came between them and their food drops, they didn't have _too _many scars on them, but for those they _did _accrue, Dana had learned field medicine from a doctor she had been in the care of during the First Outbreak. To his credit Virgil didn't scream out as Dana dug into his side with the pliers as she fished for the bullet he'd gotten. In fact, the Nanosuit had taken most of the hit so it wasn't even that deep, so between that and the pencil held between his teeth, the most he did was twitch an eye or clench his jaw.

"So _that _is the prototype that Blackwatch wanted so badly," Dana asked as she began stitching up Virgil's wound. A quick scan revealed no on-board tracking devices Blackwatch could've used to find them, which was good because they would've hated to vacate after _finally_ getting everything just the way they liked it. "To be honest I was expecting a raygun or something that could atomize viral matter in a single shot."

"Yeah, well, _ngh_, if something like that existed, then Blackwatch would be out of a job," Virgil answered with a twitch in his eye as the curved needle once again bit into his skin.

"Aaand... Done," she said affixing the end of his stitches before cutting the end. "I'm just glad you're alright," she said wrapping her arms around his neck in an affectionate hug.

"Ow, ow, ow," Virgil winched. "Easy on the hugging. This thing may've stopped bullets before, but I think they still left a bit of bruising," he said gingerly rubbing his arms, the phantom pain of bruises just beneath the skin.

"Sorry, sorry. I'm just really relieved you didn't die out there," she answered as she fussed over his hair.

"Yeah, I know, I was there," Virgil chuckled as he slowly got up, before putting on a fresh shirt, the Nanosuit laid out on a table until they decided exactly what to do with it. "So... What now?"

"Me? _You're _the one who set up the ambush and stole this thing."

"In all honesty I never thought I'd make it that far."

"And it can really do everything you say it can?"

"If it couldn't, I wouldn't be here now would I?"

"We've got super-powered aliens flying around in their underpants. I really shouldn't be surprised by _anything _anymore," she said as she walked over to the suit, before she slid off her pants and turned her shirt inside out over her head. After a bullet had caught Dana in the back a couple weeks ago, Virgil had to be the one to get it out, so her naked body wasn't anything new to him. Virgil didn't have to wonder why she was disrobing for too long before _she _began pulling on the Nanosuit. However, because of the difference in their height, it came up a little short, and even when she tried affixing the chest plate, it wouldn't secure. "Why isn't this thing working?" She wasn't as much angry as she was curious.

"The suit's on-board AI said something about my "DNA profile", so its possible that thing will only work for _me _now," he answered, the woman giving a sigh before she let the suit pool limply at her ankles before she stepped out and began putting her clothes back on.

"It wouldn't surprise me," Dana replied as she pulled her shirt back over her head. "Whatever this thing is, it has _got _to be partially organic in nature. No machine or form of machinery, no matter _how _advanced, could adapt to changing battlefield conditions so quickly."

"All that is _way _over my pay grade," the brunette sighed, lamenting that up until then he never even _had _a part-time job. Of course he was only 16, turning 17 at the end of the year. He was still wondering if he'd _make it _that far, and given his luck he'd just as soon assume anything and everything would be _trying _to kill him for the next four months until his next birthday. That line of thought wouldn't last long however when his stomach began to growl quite loudly, Dana's following suit after a few seconds. The two of them sharing a healthy laugh to ease the tension.

***ZONING OUT***

**Manhattan  
>20:25 EST<strong>

With Nanosuit in hand, it was ridiculously easy to intercept one of the food drops coming in that day. With the recent "breakout", no squads smaller than four were out and about, and for this one a patrol of five all huddled around the crate as they took inventory, their eyes darting to the darkest corners as though expecting the "Black Arrow" to ambush them at any given moment. The suit's scanners were more invasive than originally thought, as they were also able to gauge that their pulse and rates of perspiration had all increased above a normal standing position. Of course what they didn't expect was for a partially-invisible form to drop down in the middle of their circular back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-_back _formation from above. From her position in an upper window, Dana watched as Virgil blurred back into her line of sight, his movements fluid like liquid mercury, a veritable dance of death as he unsheathed the knife strapped to his boot and took each of them down with a graceful flourish. His speed beyond human, the life left their eyes before they even hit the ground, and at that moment Dana fully understood just what that suit represented.

The next evolution in modern warfare.

Of course after guesstimating how much of what materials went into the suit's construction, as well as the on-board hardware and software they'd crammed into it, on top of the probably R&D costs and time invested into the Nanosuit's development, it was unlikely that entire _armies _would be outfitted with suits like that. If anything the most suits created would be reserved for some kind of... international task force, or the like. Hargreave-Rasch Biomedical had laboratories on every continent on the planet, even Antarctica, and pooled intellectual resources from all walks of life across the globe to advance their research in the medical field for the betterment of mankind. If anything, the Nanosuit was intended to benefit the _entire _world, not just the American people where their main HQ was set. Blackwatch clearly went over H&R Biomedical's heads to forcibly acquire the suit, but failed to retain ownership, so in all likelihood had made some _powerful _enemies the moment Virgil stole that suit out right from under them.

Dana, being an investigative journalist and most-recently a full-time conspiracy theorist, was able to piece this much together from radio chatter, and what little she was able to glean from the suit itself. Virgil had told her about the canister the nanobots swimming in his system had most likely been housed in before flooding into his system, drew a picture of the insignia on the side and everything, but even with that she had no idea where the suit _truly _came from. The possibility existed that H&R Biomedical was intended to be a _front _company for something far more secretive, but without even the _slightest _bit of evidence to go on, it'd all amount to guesswork and nothing else.

That evening the two of them had their own little celebration to commemorate Virgil's return for what in all intents and purposes was meant to be a one-way suicide mission. Cracking open a bottle of rosé wine they'd managed to find a couple weeks back, they were able to bring _some _dignity to the meager meal they were able to put together. There was only so much that could be done to MREs after all. As they ate, Virgil taking the time to marvel at how dextrous his hands were even when entirely covered in metallic fibers, he sprung something on Dana that left her quite shocked.

"I'm sorry, you want to do _what_?" Dana asked with a raised eyebrow, as though she'd heard something funky just then.

"I want to smuggle you into the Yellow Zone," Virgil repeated.

"But that's suicide! The navy blockade will turn us into shark-food the moment we get in-range!" Dana argued. True to form, when shit hit the fan, people tried to make a break for the next island by boat as soon as the bridges were taken out. They were under the delusion that because they were civilians, mostly women and children, that the Navy wouldn't fire at them.

A couple hundred watery graves and numerous riverbed wrecks was enough evidence of how well _that _idea went. To those that died, the Navy officers on duty would be seen as the bad guys for killing them. To those on the mainland that kept the virus contained, they were lauded as heroes. Things like "good" and "evil" were simply dependent on perspective, where you stood in a conflict.

"Maybe for anyone else, but the Nanosuit is the one thing they _didn't _have. We have more options open to us, and I say we go for it," Virgil argued. "We've been lucky so far, but _eventually_, Blackwatch will catch wind of our location. We're completely exposed out here, but at least in the Yellow Zone there are enough eyes and ears around that they can't do whatever the hell they want."

"But didn't they have carte blanc to do what they wanted _here_?"

"Manhattan was where the virus _first _hit, and considered an acceptable loss. The other regions are basically refugee camps, and if they don't want taxpayers to throw a fit, they'll put on a good show even if those baby-killers have to swallow a bit of pride," he returned. "I'm getting the hell off this puss-filled rock, and I'm taking you out of here with me."

" . . . You'd really go that far for me? Even with who my brother is?" Dana asked, a bit of surprise creeping into her tone.

"You're just that. You're _you_, not your brother. And..." he paused. "I'm sorry I brought that up earlier. Look, point is-" Virgil said getting back on track. "I can get you somewhere safe. I'd be a little out of my comfort zone taking the fight to Blackwatch, but I could make _something _happen if it means getting you to safety. I couldn't save my family, or my friends, but I want to be able to save at least _one _person."

" . . . If we're going to do this, we're going to need a plan."

***ZONING OUT***

**Brooklyn  
>August 11, 04:00 EST<strong>

Said plan involved acquiring two sets of oxygen tanks and scuba gear, before diving off the Whitehall Ferry Terminal and into the river. That night there were heavy storms above the three Zones, and it was fortunate that the skies had been clear when Virgil had attempted to escape Blackwatch, because for obvious reasons Stealth Mode was useless when raindrops were bearing down on his frame. Visibility beneath the water next to nil from the Navy's boats, with powerful flipper-aided strides, Virgil was able to swim both him and Dana over to the nearest corner of the Yellow Zone, formerly known as Brooklyn, under everyone's notice before they ran out of oxygen. Though undignified, the two of them snuck into the Yellow Zone's interior via a decommissioned sewer pipe that let out right at the water. En route they encountered one Luis Guerra, Dana's contact in the Yellow Zone. He was quite surprised to see Dana actually _there_, but almost shot Virgil with his shotgun the moment he stepped out of the shadows.

Once that little issue was dealt with and any misconceptions cleared up, the party of three made their way to the church that Guerra now ran in the Yellow Zone. With how life was in the Yellow Zone, near-everyone had assumed that God had abandoned them, so the church was eerily quiet as they made their way to Father Guerra's private room, one of the few places that Blackwatch didn't have any eyes or ears. Virgil and Dana had burned most of their resources back in the Red Zone so Blackwatch would have no idea how much they knew, though they were able to snag the computer files and smuggle them out in Dana's wetsuit. Once Dana debriefed Father Guerra on everything they had done in the Red Zone for the past month, Virgil staying out of it because he'd rather not talk about what happened on _his _end, they began contemplating their next move to route out Blackwatch from Brooklyn.

"Yeah, gonna have to stop you _riiiiight _there," Virgil saw fit to interrupt when Guerra began outlining _his _part in their future escapades. "I don't know about you guys, but now that Dana's out of the Red Zone, I am _out_. Peace," he added throwing up a **V **at the end.

"You're just going to leave?" Guerra asked. "With all that power at your fingertips, you could make a real difference here."

"And in all likelihood wind up getting killed in the process," Virgil snapped back. "I'm not fit for the hero type of role. In fact the concept of "heroes" utterly _disgusts_ me. All I want to do is hit the water at the next opportunity and make a break for the mainland. Call me selfish or whatever you want, but I actually want to _live _to see my next birthday. With my shit luck that's highly unlikely, but I'd at least like to give it a _shot_!"

"But-" Dana looked like she wanted to object, but quickly withdrew it. "No... No, you're right, I can't ask you to do this. Not after everything Blackwatch put you through. Besides," she said turning back to Guerra. "Even if Virgil _did_ use the Nanosuit to help people here in the Yellow Zone, it'd only make Blackwatch knuckle down on us all the harder. It might actually be for the best he leaves."

"_Thank _you," Virgil sighed in relief that he wasn't being guilt-tripped into staying. "So, how and where should I head out to."

" . . . There will be another storm tonight with a strong current," Father Guerra answered after a few moments' silence. "It'd be too dangerous to make landfall in New York, so you'll want to head a bit farther south than that."

"So how long will I have to be in the drink for then?"

"My guess? Hit the water as soon as the rain starts, stay in the drink a couple hours, and then swim for dry land before first light," the man answered.

" . . . That's it?"

"Look, I'm not a sailor, I have no idea how far south tonight's current will take you. All I can say is if you _do _want to get out of here that badly, it'll have to be anywhere _but _here," the man answered.

In response to that statement, Virgil sighed heavily as he ran his fingers through his hair. After Blackwatch had killed his family, he'd put almost all of his energy (that wasn't being directed towards bringing in supplies) into shedding blood for the blood spilled, and he'd eventually made peace with that after maybe the 100th Blackwatch he'd had a hand in killing or so. Part of him wanted to stay and fight, he really did, but a much larger part told him to leave and never look back. It may've been his then-hometown that Blackwatch was stomping all over, but it simply wasn't his fight. Not anymore.

"I'm glad we could come to an understanding about this," Virgil sighed as he laid down on the cot to the side of the room, pulling the covers up to his neck. "Wake me up when the rain starts, alright? I'm going to get some sleep before I head out."

*****ZONING OUT*****

****NeoNazo356: Yes, Virgil will be leaving NYZ next-chapter instead of taking the fight to Blackwatch. Sorry for those of you who wanted to see a fight between the Nanosuit-wearing Virgil and Alex Mercer, but the disparity in power between the two of them is simply too great for the prior to win out; like Yamcha trying to beat Cell in the classic Beam Struggle. It'd be like David versus Goliath, only Goliath has a healing factor that nothing short of a freaking _nuke _could slow down. Seriously, in Prototype for those that haven't seen the ending, Mercer took a nuke to the face at the end of the game, was reduced to a steaming hot puddle, and managed to completely regenerate after getting some fresh animal protein.  
><strong>**

****Spaceman: Virgil isn't a typical hero (or anti-hero for that matter) and despises the idea of heroes, so don't expect him to foolishly charge into danger. He's smart enough to know that Heroes don't always make things better. He acts more like a guerrilla soldier than any of the cape squad, and knows that his presence possessing advance stolen technology could actually make things far worse. Virgil doesn't immediately take charge of the situation and take the fight to Blackwatch, but instead wants to make a break for the mainland.  
><strong>**

****NeoNazo356: I do have it planned that he returns, but not for a while, story-wise. Originally I was going to have Virgil leave NYZ as soon as he'd gotten back with the Nanosuit, but I decided to patch a few things up plot-wise and write in Dana being moved to the Yellow Zone to get things back on track for Heller. That way, Virgil wouldn't feel guilty about leaving her in a hellhole when he had the power to move her somewhere safer. Also, without a second, Dana would've been dead by he end of the week in all likelihood.  
><strong>**

**Spaceman: A character's development is limited by his environment and interaction with others. The NYZ is a very limited environment since the only people Virgil can interact with are Guerra and Dana, the rest are Blackwatch soldiers and the Infected. While some characters can develop in a pathogenic apocalyptic setting, it involves a group of survivors talking about memories of the past. That past is long gone for Vergil, all that remains is a hatred of Blackwatch and a few nightmares. All Vergil can do is create new memories and the best place for that is a new environment.  
><strong>

**NeoNazo356: Deep. That was very deep. As for the voice coming out of his Voice Synthesizer, in place of the one from the Crysis games, basically imagine Shannon McCormick portraying Agent Washington out of the popular web series, ****Red vs Blue****. For some reason I want people in-story to hear that voice coming from Virgil when he's wearing the Nanosuit, mainly so he'll be taken **_**seriously**_**. As for **_**Virgil's **_**voice on its own... No idea really, I suppose that'll be up to interpretation.**


	7. New Haven

**NeoNazo356: Before we start things up, its time to shed a little light onto a topic that some of you seem to be confused about. ****Gelasmus**** stated in his Review for the previous chapter- "****Well, while I am slightly sad to see New York go already" -yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah- "****And maybe, we'll eventually find out why the Justice League or any other heroes haven't tried to help." Here's the explanation behind that: The Blacklight/Mercer virus spreads like most zombie plagues; through bites, scratches, and fluid exchange. Now think about it like this. Say Superman DOES go in, fight some Infected, only for Mercer to wail on his over-undie-wearing ass until his solar-powered "force field" gives out, and then gets infected himself. The fact that the Blacklight/Mercer Virus CANNOT commute across bodies of water was the only thing keeping it from spreading to the mainland, and by extension, the rest of the world. Unlike the common citizen, Superheroes would have the ability to come and go as they please, military resistance or not, and if the JL decided to fight their way out, of their own volition or not, there's nothing that could stop them from leaving.**

**Spaceman: Though the Justice League doesn't answer to any government, they still follow the rules. Their actions have consequences and government opinion determines if their actions will be supported or criticized. Consider the Justice League Unlimited episode in which an Asian country created the giant radioactive Brimstone robot. That country refused help even though they were unprepared. Heroes walk a fine line between being sentinels of Justice enforcing the laws of a land and discarding the laws of a country to suit there own sense of morals. What governments fear is those morals becoming corrupted like in Injustice for All or Justice Lords.**

**NeoNazo356: So in short, it isn't that they CAN'T go into NYZ and fight Mercer, nor do they not WANT to. They DO want to help the people there, but the problem, outside of spreading the virus, is Mercer himself. He can Consume anyone, assume all their memories and mannerisms, while being completely indistinguishable from the real thing until its too late. If Mercer managed to Consume even ONE member of the Justice League, he could take them out like domino; using Black Canary to get close to Green Arrow, whose friendly demeanor would allow him to get close to Aquaman, who could lure Wonder Woman out into the open by wanting to talk about politics between Atlantis and Themyscira, and so on.**

**Spaceman: The every paranoid genius that is Batman would have weighed the pros and the cons, and chose the lesser of two evils. It's better to keep the Mercer Virus contained to small area and let the soldiers deal with the mutations and death, then to send in heroes and risk having the world be infected by super powered mutations.** **Mercer with the ability to fly at super speed instead of super glide would be extremely bad. Something similar happened in Marvel Zombies. After being infected, Quicksilver used his speed to travel around the world infecting others, and is apparently a major reason why the infection could not be contained before it became a global threat. **

**NeoNazo356: So... Long** **story short, made even _shorter, _is if Mercer sunk his teeth into even ONE of the Justice League, Game Over. Do no pass Go. Do not collect two-hundred dollars. Do not put in fifty cents. The. End. Period.  
><strong>

***NEW HAVEN***

Before I left Father Guerra's place in the Yellow Zone, after getting the first real sleep without having to worry about a Blackwatch or Infected attack at any given moment of deep sleep since this whole mess _started_, I got a real shower with soap and everything. So much crud had accumulated in my hair and on my skin that it nearly clogged the drain, but I managed to avoid that embarrassing situation. Barely. I only got to enjoy the luxury for ten, fifteen minutes tops before Dana kicked me out, desperately in need of a shower herself. From what Father Guerra told me of the Yellow Zone, I was one of the few lucky ones to bathe in running water. Explains why the place smells like shit.

Before I was given the green light to leave, Father Guerra ran a check on me to ensure I wasn't infected with the Mercer Virus, which according to Dana was a cover-up for the fact that it was _actually _called the Blacklight Virus. Said virus was created using a blood sample from some lady named Greene, who herself was extracted out of some armpit in the middle of Idaho, but in all honesty I didn't give a shit, because apparently Mercer _ate _her. Or something. When I asked how she knew that, she begrudgingly mentioned her brother since he was right in the middle of it last time. I could've easily _forced _my way out of there, head for the mainland whether I was infected with the virus or not, but after looking back on the horrors that the virus had wrought on Manhattan, I relented, knowing I couldn't possibly condemn an entire continent, nay, the rest of the world, because of my own selfishness.

None of us were viral-geneticists by any stretch of the imagination, but Dana who had been in the care of one Dr. Bradley Ragland during the last outbreak (now known to the history books as "New York Zero's First Outbreak") had been able to learn a few things once the dust settled after the whole _nuke _thing. Pretty much everything that left Dana's mouth went completely over my head. In fact she had to go into a few of the smaller things in greater detail, but eventually I managed to piece it together. The Blacklight virus was some kind of evolutionary chimeric mutation-causing infectious agent capable of reproducing only inside the living cells of other organisms. And that was the short version.

It worked by "plugging into" a living organisms' cells before activating the "junk DNA" in its system, resulting in several biological changes that created a form of sentience within the infected creature's cellular makeup... Supposedly. She said something about protein encoding regions and promoter introns, a retrovirus and some kind of enzyme, and how it apparently activated dormant non-coding segments of the organism's DNA. That pretty much went completely over my head, the highest I got in high school Biology was a B+, but what I _could _wrap my head around was it basically mutated you from the inside out, and that 99.99% of all infected organisms died from massive organ failure and cell saturation. I didn't know _what _they were saturated with exactly, but I can wager a guess its why these Infected monsters were ugly as shit.

_Some _varieties were capable of yielding beneficial results, as Dana was able to confirm that there _were in fact_, eight foot tall walls of living muscle so large they couldn't use conventional firearms during the last Outbreak because their fingers were the size of babies' arms. My zero-hesitation policy when it came to killing however, was not one of them, ruled out from the fact I was _not _infected with a beneficial strain, but instead part of a previously-recorded psychosomatic condition that had only in recent years warranted in-depth study. Back in the old days when Father Guerra still had his tattoos, he'd heard whisperings about how one in every fifty soldiers was able to kill without any form of hesitation, whereas "normal" people couldn't handle the blood, body parts, and fear in dying eyes. It made me something called a "Two-Percenter", something any government wetwork group would _kill _to have in their possession, so he recommended I _not _talk about that. E-VER.

Back to the main topic… The Blacklight Virus was _highly _contagious and could infect living organisms through a number of means. First and foremost was physical contact, as in if a non-infected person was bitten or scratched by an Infected or a Hunter; basically every zombie movie ever. Next was bodily fluid contact, but thankfully that was only through open wounds, and I managed to _somehow _avoid being infected in _that _manner when that Hunter tackled me off the side of a building and then puke blood all over me. Lastly was via direct injection like the so-called "D-Codes", but since I _never _injected myself with any suspicious fluid like a _normal _person, I was cleared that way as well.

After a _very _thorough check to make sure I wasn't hiding anything, and after the way Father Guerra waved that shotgun in my face I avoided making any "priest and little boys" cracks, I was given the green light to leave the island as soon as the weather set in once again. Storm fronts like the one hitting us tonight were pretty rare, so if I didn't take this opening and leave _now_, it'd be infinitely harder to do so later. After saying goodbye to Dana and wishing them the best of luck, I headed down through the sewers to the edge of the island, waiting for the stormy weather to set in so I could leave.

***NEW HAVEN***

**Pacific Ocean**  
><strong>August 12, 06:03 EST<strong>

Once the stormy weather hit, with scuba tank in hand Virgil had hit the water, remaining below the surface as he bypassed the naval barricade in its entirety. While the suit's re-breather only worked for five to ten minutes before the air began to get stale, fortunately the breather-like apparatus on his face was compatible with exterior equipment, something he was thankful for during his and Dana's exodus from the Red Zone. The suit's digital bearing indicator kept him from going too far out to sea, and like he was told before he left, an ocean current would pull him further southward than he could get on his own.

He'd spent what felt like forever in the water, occasionally resurfacing to ensure he remained close enough to dry land that he could see the lights, but far enough away that he couldn't_ be_ seen. Traffic along the eastern sea board had thinned a bit since the Second Outbreak started a month ago, so he didn't have to worry about being hit by any boats, or worse, spotted on the way out. With the flippers he'd used before and his suit's strength-augmenting capabilities, he was able to cover in hours what would take a normal person… several _more _hours, he guessed.

He wasn't sure whether the suit could handle temperature extremes or not, but at the very least he wasn't freezing his ass off in the water. What he _was _able to figure out was that while for a normal person the oxygen tank would've run dry hours ago, that maybe _possibly_, the Nanosuit helped his body make better use of the oxygen he took in. Thankfully before he left, he was able to "think" the suit's clock into setting to the correct time, hence he remained aware of the passage of time.

He supposed it was pure dumb luck that his oxygen began to run out before the sun began to rise that morning. Bearing a hard right and swimming west as fast as his legs could carry him, since nanobots or not his legs were beginning to burn and his thighs chafing, he made his way back to US soil. He could worry about _where _he wound up later, but the fatigue both mental and physical was beginning to catch up with him, so first order of business was that he find a hole in the wall to duck down in for a couple hours, catch some Zs, and then decide on his next move.

***NEW HAVEN***

**Docks  
>August 12, 20:55 EST<strong>

Arriving at shore as the sun began to peak above the horizon, with the Nanosuit's capabilities it was child's play to sneak into one of the dock warehouses and find a nice dark corner in the nosebleed section to take a quick nap in before the graveyard shift switched out for the day shift. That was his _plan _anyway, since by the time he woke up, the HUD's clock displayed he'd slept more than half the day away. Using his Tactical Visor to ensure no-one was around to see him leave, he snuck back out into the night air once more. From what he was able to glean as he cloaked his way around the nights' graveyard shift, he'd managed to land in _Bludhaven_, Gotham City's next-door neighbor. Whether it was worse or better-off was still up to debate.

"_Huh, didn't think I'd cover that much ground, err, _water_," _Virgil corrected himself, thankful that the Nanosuit could "recognize" when he did and did _not _want to be heard. _"In all likelihood Blackwatch declared me _dead_ already, so if I try to use my own identity, I'll be accused of identity theft. If they have any feelers out there for potential escapees, like me, I might wind up signing my own death warrant. Best option is to get an off-the-books job, so I suppose it's a _good _thing I wound up in Bludhaven. No shortage of off-the-books work to be found here," _he summed up in his mind. Panning his gaze to the sides, plans of "borrowing" some resale clothing at the forefront of his mind, he caught sight of something that marginally unsettled him. _"The hell. Seriously, what the hell am I looking at?"_

What he was _looking __at_, was a pair of punk-looking motherfuckers with leather jackets and Mohawks accosting a pre-teen-looking girl who _definitely _was not legal. Said girl was short and rail-thin with messy dirty-blonde hair, a bandage running across the bridge of her nose, pink ribbons in her hair, and a white gas mask worn askew over the left side of her head. Over a pink T-shirt she wore a burgundy-colored strapless dress with a short skirt that had been patched up numerous times, scorch marks here and there, with a small pink apron featuring a deranged-looking rabbit around her waist. She had a white and orange detached sleeve over her right arm held in place by mini-belts, a rabbit-shaped watch on her left wrist, her orange baggy pants had the right leg missing, a white sock with two pink stripes at the top and a dress shoe over her right foot, while the left foot had a pink woolen sock with vertical stripes and an orange sneaker on it. The only thing that stood out about her aside from her mismatched attire _more_, was that she had a case of ambylopia, or "lazy eye", in her left eye.

To clarify, it wasn't that they were assaulting her in the _sexual _sense, but rather they were trying to separate her from a picnic basket that was filled with grenades and plastic explosives. Honestly, the girl barely looked thirteen, so he was wondering just _how _she was able to acquire that much ordinance. Him, he stole it off of dead bodies and weapon crates, that was _his _excuse.

"Not even five minutes on dry land, and already I have to punch something."

***NEW HAVEN***

"Hand over the goods and we'll let you go!" one of the guys demanded as he tried to wrest the explosive-filled picnic basket free, the little girl's grip deceptively strong as she held her own against two guys who were almost twice her size apiece.

"Nevah! You won't touch my badonkadonks, you punk-ass bitches!" the little blond girl shrieked.

"If this wasn't happening to me too, I'd say this was just sad," the other guy said shaking his head.

"Hey there," a voice suddenly said behind them. The two dumbly turning around at the same time, the last thing each of them saw was a fist to the face. Each of them spinning on their heels before falling flat on their backs. The one who punched them proceeded to remove the wallets from their back pockets, fishing out the scratch that lie within before returning their wallets to their homes, then grabbing them by their waistbands before tossing them in the nearby dumpster. Turning around, one of the two managed to regain consciousness and lift the dumpster lid up over his head, only for another hook to take him out. Clearly the two of them had jaws made of glass.

"So… You some kinda robot from the future or something?" the manic pre-teen asked as she bounced on her heels, explosive-filled picnic basked now resting behind her back.

" . . . Nooooo," Virgil drawled out awkwardly as he fumbled for the latch to his helmet. "Just a guy. In a suit," he said running his fingers through his helmet-hair.

"Oh. S'cool," the little girl returned.

"You're… taking this exceptionally well," Virgil said motioning to his state of dress. His initial intention of unmasking was so the pre-teen in front of him wouldn't panic and call the cops, but seeing how she was _not_, he was actually a little disappointed.

"Yeah, well, I sees weird shits all the time," she returned. "Name's Tina. What's your name, girl?"

" . . . Virgil," he answered.

"Neat. Wanna hang out at mah digs?"

" . . . Sure?"

"Tally-ho!"

***NEW HAVEN***

As they walked down the dark alleys and such, Tina telling him random snippets about herself, and asking a few random things about _him_, he noticed some trends in her verbal mannerisms. For one thing, they switched quite frequently, including a stereotypical inner-city American speech pattern, little girl speech patterns, stereotypically pretentious British English speech patterns, and then on occasion randomly violent and murderous speech patterns. Once more he thought of Nature versus Nurture, but he would sooner assume it was the environment of Bludhaven _itself _that caused her to act that way, as opposed to something relating to _her _like maybe multiple personality dysfunction. With the whole "Two-Percenter" thing hanging over his head, who was _he _to judge?

"Um... Tina, right?"

"Ya-huh?"

"Where did you... get this?" he asked referring to the tan-colored trench coat he was now wearing. For obvious reasons he couldn't be seen walking around as-was, something Tina quickly rectified after having him follow her home, but until that very moment he'd had yet to ask _where _she got it.

"I picked it off a dead hobo," she said without an ounce of shame.

"Someone _died _in this?!"

"Yeah, pretty good fit, huh?"

***NEW HAVEN***

"Here we's are, girl. Home sweet home. Mi casa, su casa," Tina said after a couple minutes of walking through dark alleys from the port to the city's interior. As Virgil pulled the dead hobo's trench coat tighter around himself, hiding as much of the Nanosuit as he could leaving only his hands and feet exposed, he craned his neck up to see just where Tina had taken him. The place was an old all-brick building, probably there longer than he'd been alive, tagged with graffiti, posters, and numerous stains of ambiguous origin. From inside he could hear muffled music, shouting, generally the noises one would associated with a crazy house party. There was a metal-reinforced door in the middle and a pair of windows to each side on the ground level, while the second and third floor had five windows across the building's face, these reinforced with cage-like steel bars. What really caught his eye was the bright neon sign that read **MOXXXiS**, all the letters glowing hot pink whereas the **X**s were colored bright red. Situated above it was a set of neon lines operating in sequence shaped like a long feminine leg with a high-heel shoe doing the can-can.

"Um… How come the ground floor windows aren't barred?" Virgil found himself asking.

_***CRASH***_

His question was answered in the form of a clearly-intoxicated patron being thrown through the window and out onto the sidewalk, another equally-intoxicated patron leaping out after him. As the two proceeded to beat the tar out of one another, Tina skipped to the door humming a merry tune, seemingly unfettered by the sight occurring not even two feet away. Deciding it wasn't really his place to question business practices in Bludhaven, Virgil followed the lazy-eyed girl as she cracked the door open.

The brunette's auditory senses assaulted with loud country music, Virgil walked in to discover Tina was leading him into a _bar_ of all places. The place reeked of alcohol, the smell of many men and women simply drinking their troubles away filling his nostrils, but after the month _he'd _had, he could understand the appeal. There were men and women from all walks of life either chatting it up, drinking it down, arguing over sports playing on the tube, or in some cases _***SLAP* **_getting a little too fresh with one another. The place was wide open with hardwood floors and furniture, and from a glance he could tell the place had been the site of its fair share of barroom brawls. The left side of the establishment was dominated by booths hugging the walls, catering to either individuals, pairs, or even groups of people doing various things done in a bar. The center of the room had circular tables scattered about, clusters of people enjoying their drink as they enjoyed sports playing into the night, some cordial, while some responded to violence, but overall it was in good fun. The right side of the room was dominated by, you guessed it, a hardwood bar lined with patrons in various states of wake or unconsciousness, countless shot glasses, and the occasional bowl of nuts. In the corner was an old beat-up, neon-lit jukebox that looked like it came right out of the 1900s, and while it looked like it'd seen better days, it performed it job of filling the room with music nonetheless.

"Take a seat, girl, this one's on me," Tina said pushing Virgil onto an available stool before she circled around and ducked behind the counter. Finding himself between two _very _large men in denim vests with full-grown beards, bandanas on their heads, and sunglasses even though they were indoors, he was soon on the receiving end of a two-fold stink eye from both flanks, courtesy of who were obviously members of a motorcycle gang. Before, the sixteen-year-old would've been scared out of his mind and compelled to find seating somewhere else, buckling under their gaze. After facing modern-day Nazis, bulletproof zombies, and giant flesh-eating gorilla-dog-things with teeth and claws like steak knives for about a month, instead the brunette returned a narrow-eyed, hate-filled gaze that promised a _lot _of pain and suffering, because in all honesty after swimming countless miles away from a _literal _quarantine zone, he was NOT in the fucking mood.

"I see you know how to handle yourself, 'sug," a woman's voice said to him as the two _much _larger men flinched back from the brunette's gaze and turned their attention back to their drinks. Shifting his attention once he was sure the two at his sides wouldn't be any problem, Virgil was greeted with the sight of a tall buxom woman dressed _very _provocatively, her hourglass figure just _oozing _sex appeal. The woman had shoulder-length brown hair with the ends curled upwards, bright blue eyes, and a beauty mark above the left side of her upper lip. She had her makeup caked on pretty thick, a layer of white foundation covering most of her face, the circles of pink blush on her cheeks like that of a circus clown, matching color eyeliner, and the mascara was pretty thick as well. Atop her head was a red magician's hat with a black-and-white stripped band around the bottom, a green, orange, and blue feather as well as a red Queen of Hearts playing card sticking out the left side. Her attire consisted of a bright red gold-trimmed suit like a Las Vegas magician would wear, the top exposing a generous amount of cleavage with a pink heart tattoo on the inside of her left can, her collar and cuffs matching the band on her hat. Hazarding a quick glance over the counter, he saw that the woman had fishnet stockings going up her very shapely legs, her suit revealing a generous amount of hip where it stopped, a pair of white platform boots on her feet with silver buttons on the sides stopping just below her knees. Overall her attire hugged her figure _very _well, but he had the feeling if he tried getting fresh with her, he might lose a hand, Nanosuit or no Nanosuit. Then again that may've been the gun holster attached to the loosely-hanging belt on her hips talking.

"I've dealt with worse," Virgil admitted as he snagged a drink from the man on his immediate right and downed it in a single gulp. The alcohol burned his throat, but took the edge off his headache, so screw legal drinking laws, he'd just swum God-knows how many miles out of a quarantine zone. The man he stole the drink from got to his feet pushing the stool back, hands gripping the counter and scowl on his face, but a sidelong murderous glare from the brunette, more intense than before, prompted him to take a step back instead, holding up his hands in a placating manner before he walked away.

"I can tell," the woman replied mirthfully. "So, you're the "robot man" that helped Tiny Tina out by the docks?"

"I guess I am," Virgil said placing the shot glass upside-down on the counter with a **_*clunk*_**.

"Well I appreciate it. She can handle herself just fine, but it's nice to know there's the occasional white knight out there," the woman answered as she topped Virgil off with another round. Clearly she didn't care about carding him, if the way she ruffled Tina's hair was any indication.

"I wouldn't go that far," Virgil returned with a sigh as he ran his fingers through his hair. Looking up and seeing how intently the woman was looking at the muscle fibers over his hand, he stuffed his hand into his pocket while using the other to tighten his grip on his collar.

"Still, I guess I owe ya. Tina was _supposed _to wait for someone to help her pick up her merchandise, but she ran off before I could send someone out with her," the woman answered, her eyes drifting to the material around the brunette's neck, but seeming to pay it no mind. "So, _girl_, what's your name?" she asked using Tina's gender-specific way of addressing him prior.

"Virgil."

"Name's Moxxi. Mad Moxxi," the woman answered with a tip of her hat and a playful wink. "It might not seem like it, but here in Bludhaven we help our own, so, if there's anything you need, I'll try to oblige you."

"Well, as long as you're offering… a place to sleep for the night and a job interview in the morning would be nice," Virgil answered as he swirled the shot of whiskey in his hand. He didn't expect someone he'd just met to be _that _accommodating, helping hand or not, but it couldn't hurt to ask since the offer _was _made.

"Oh is that all?" the woman said looking him up and down. "Not a problem," she said with a wave of her hand, and had Virgil taken a sip of that second shot he would've spit-took at that very moment. "Tina, take your new friend upstairs. _*sniff sniff* _And get him in the shower. He smells like something from the Hudson River."

"C'mon girlfriend, let's get you washed," Tina said scampering over the counter before pulling the brunette out of his stool, pushing him around the bar and to a set of stairs that led to the upper floor. "You smell like a dead hobo."

"That's cause you took this _off _of one!" Virgil argued tugging at his collar.

***NEW HAVEN***

"So wait, you're just going to let me in your house like this? Just like that?" Virgil asked as he was pushed up the stairs by the _very _pushy lazy-eyed girl.

"Yeah boy, you cool," Tina said, this time addressing him by his _actual _gender. Turning out the dimly-lit stairwell and shutting the door behind them, when the noise all but disappeared Virgil felt like he'd stepped into an entirely different _building _instead of just a single floor. The place he'd just stepped into looked like an upper middle-class apartment, completely different from the lower middle-class vibe just outside the reinforced windows. The hardwood floors were a russet shade of red, the walls painted a warm shade of sunset orange, and the interior well-lit, a stark contrast from the seedy-looking bar just downstairs. Between the plush sofas, open-walled kitchen and dining room, racing memorabilia and family photos lining the walls, the place felt like any other family-made home. "Bathrooms down the hall on the left. Imma nap," Tina said bouncing on the balls of her feet before she ran over to one of the sofas, draping herself across it before seemingly falling asleep on-the-spot, light snores leaving her lips as did the occasional snort.

'_Okay… This is kinda weird…' _Virgil thought as he made his way down the hall Tina pointed him towards. After a month of anarchy in the Red Zone, he'd learn to read when people meant him harm or not, and as too-good-to-be-true this reception was, for some reason he didn't feel in the slightest bit of danger. Like he was genuinely safe within these walls. _'It's not like anyone else could use the suit anyway. DNA profile or something,' _he thought to himself as he entered the bathroom, checker-patterned black-and-white tiles on the floor, the walls painted a soothing seafoam green, a large mirror dominating the left side, a shower stall the back, and a toilet on the right. There was a dirty clothes hamper off to the side filled with women's clothing, half a bra sticking out the top, but he paid it no mind.

Shedding what was _hopefully _not in actuality the trench coat taken off a dead hobo, then the Nanosuit as he shimmied out of it, and lastly peeling his street clothes from his body he stepped into the shower. Hand hovering above the faucet handle as he took one last look around him, he turned the warm water on and let the rivulets of water trail down his frame. Feeling more at ease for the first time in a long time, he grabbed a random bottle of fruit-scented shampoo and a bar of soap before scrubbing down. If half of what Moxxi said was true, he didn't want to be a bad guest and step out of the shower smelling like something that'd just came out of the Hudson River.

"I wonder where that metaphor came from anyway."

***NEW HAVEN***

In retrospect, feeling of safety or not, Virgil probably should've been more aware of his surroundings as he gave himself a deep scrub. Were it a psycho-killer trying to run a parody of 1960s Psycho, _that _he would've noticed. You don't just _forget _what it's like when someone wanting to kill you is heading your way; kinda like your first kiss at your date's front door after you walk her home, only the paternal rage from the overbearing father when he happens upon it at the worst possible moment is far worse. Someone with light footsteps rifling through the clothes he'd left on the floor before sneaking off with what was likely a multi-million dollar piece of advanced military hardware… kiiinda slipped under his radar.

'_Alright Virgil, stay calm. Tina probably woke up from her little nap and was just curious about the suit,' _Virgil thought to himself as he flattened the wrinkles in his street clothes as best he could. _'All I have to do is come up with _some _kind of excuse and hide it out of sight… as soon as I actually come _up _with an excuse,' _he said to himself as he walked out the bathroom and into the living room where he heard quiet muttering. Tina was nowhere in sight, but someone _else _was enthusiastically tugging and flexing the Nanosuit's muscle-like fibers, a look of total fascination on her face. '_Wait, is she drooling?'_

She was an attractive young woman, her hair a light blond color and pulled back into two braids, a few lochs of hair sticking out above her forehead, while her vibrant blue eyes with circular glasses in front of them watched even the slightest movement the Nanosuit in her hands made under her ministrations. She wore a plain red T-shirt and black shorts with a white lab coat of all things over her shoulders, a pair of plain white sneakers on her feet. Though unnoticed at first, the girl had some of Moxxi's facial features, the shapes of their chest and hips quite similar, despite how her somewhat-unflattering clothing hid it.

"Um… Hello?" Virgil hazarded as he stepped forward.

"AH!" the blond yelped as she jumped to her feet, clutching the Nanosuit protectively to her chest as she did so. "Oh… Hello." Apparently she was quite skittish. "What are you doing here?"

"Apparently I'm being given a place to stay for the night and a job interview in the morning," Virgil answered, still trying to process how well things were going for him. Then again, having half your family killed by modern-day Nazis and the other eaten by flesh-eating zombies probably racked up some good karma. "What are _you _doing molesting my suit?" he returned with a raised eyebrow. "Were _you _the one who rifled through my things to get to it?"

"Yes. I mean no! I mean, I did, but I didn't see anything!" the blond panicked, her glasses becoming slightly askew on her face as she waved one hand frantically, the other clutching onto the full-body suit to her frame even more tightly.

"Girl, you needs to calm down," Tina said skipping through the room, before randomly laying herself down on the couch and falling asleep. Again.

" . . . That was random," Virgil admitted amidst Tina's light snoring.

"You get used to it…" the blond girl admitted as she looked Virgil up and down. "I'm Athena. And you are?"

"Virgil." No need to hand out his surname yet.

"Where on Earth did you get this!?" the now-named Athena said, suddenly in his face with wide eyes. "The composition of this material is flexible and elastic in nature yet entirely synthetic! How high is its tensile strength? How far can it be stretched without losing its shape? What about temperature resistance? What extremes can it handle? What-"

"She's going to go on like that for a while. Sit," a new voice said, a pair of hands clamping down on his shoulders slipping completely under his radar and forcing him into a sitting position. Craning his neck upward, he saw yet another young woman, her features indicative of a Eurasian descent, her shoulder-length black hair brushed out of her face, her brown eyes boring into his own. When she circled around, he saw that her attire consisted of a black sports tank top with red stripes running down the sides, white cargo pants, a pair of red toed sneakers with white and black accents, and a red fingerless glove with black knuckles on her left hand. "Who are you? And I'm not talking about your name. _Who _are you, that you could have something like… _this_?" she asked holding up one of the Nanosuit's hands between two fingers.

"That's… a bit of a story," Virgil returned. Glancing sidelong, he saw Athena rapidly postulating questions, completely unaware she was speaking incomprehensible babble.

Crossing her arms, the Eurasian girl leveled a glare at him as she took a seat across from him. "I've got time."

"Crumpets!" Tina shouted as she suddenly came into wakefulness, hopping to her feet and running into the kitchen.

"Can I at least know the name of my interrogator?" Virgil asked. While this girl was _trying _to be intimidating, nothing really compared to waking up strapped to a meta slab and being told you were going to be skinned alive by a modern-day Nazi.

And no, he was not fixating.

"Shaula. Now start talking?" she repeated.

'_How did I get into this mess?' _Virgil asked himself as Shaula grilled him, Tina ran into the kitchen to make crumpets, and Athena turned her attention back to the suit as she examined every nook and cranny of its design. _'Oh right. I chickened out of fighting modern-day Nazis in a quarantine zone. Still trying to decide which was the lesser of two evils here.'_

Once again. Not fixating.

***NEW HAVEN***

**NeoNazo356: Bet you didn't see **_**this **_**coming did you?**

**Spaceman: This story has a unique history and the characters of Borderlands are a part of it. They aren't imports, but analogues - alternate versions of the game characters that exist in this version of Earth-16. There histories are woven into the history of many characters and I hope the reader enjoy our takes on these wild characters.  
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**NeoNazo356: When Spaceman and I were first making this story, we only initially had a **_**few **_**"pseudo-crossovers" in mind, but after getting a feel for how well some of them "meshed" with other characters within the story, the ideas kept growing, so you're sure to see some of my best work, for those of you familiar with other works. ** ** was my first-ever story, so understandably it was pretty bad. My later stories made were me getting used to writing, finding my style, and figuring out what I did and didn't like. This story and those that come after, are the result of much practice and planning, something I didn't have before.**

**Spaceman: You may be wondering why Moxxi was willing to help Virgil and Tina is so cool about things. They aren't innocent or naive, but they have a strong sense of family and there own sense of honour. He protected one of them, so they are willing to help him. It also helps Virgil must have been threw a lot like them.  
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**NeoNazo356: Athena is an OC, not part of any IP. Appearance-wise, she resembles Winry Rockbell from ****Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood****, but with the glasses and hairstyle of Satomi Hakase from ****Mahou Sensei Negima****. Shaula is also an OC, appearance-wise based on Faith Connors from ****Mirror's Edge****, only without the tattoos, not necessarily _her _analogue.**

**Spaceman: Moxxi has a fairly large family with five children, one son and four daughters. Ellie and Scooter being the ones explicitly listed, that leaves room for character building. Athena and Shaula being the two mentioned so far. They all have the same mother, but Moxxi has had many adventures which have left traits in her daughters.  
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	8. A Light Snuffed Out Too Soon

**NeoNazo356: For those of you saying "please update" (and _nothing _else), this update is not for you, its for someone more important. Monty Oum, THE Monty Oum of RoosterTeeth productions, animator for seasons 8 through 10 of the popular web series Red vs Blue, as well as the animator, story pitcher, and voice of Lie Ren in the anime RWBY, has passed away as of 4:34, February 1st.**

** Spaceman: I only heard of his passing recently, at the same time I learned he was the Creator of RWBY. I love to read the crossovers on this fan fiction site and watched every episode with joy and excitement. I count that series as one of my favorites and I hope everyone will continue to enjoy his work. It's his legacy.**

** NeoNazo356: When I went to MTAC last year, there was a HUGE line for the RWBY panel, and the room was filled to the point it was practically a firehazard; this was well before the DVD release. Since then, RWBY's popularity has only continued to explode, so I know without a doubt in my mind that there are many, MANY people, who are mourning Monty Oum's passing. I may have never have met him in person, only seeing him from the other side of a computer monitor, but my prayers go out to his wife Sheena, his father Mony, his brothers Woody, Sey, Chivy, and Neat, his sisters Thea and Theary, as well as all of his friends and colleagues who have lost a good friend this day.**

** Spaceman: I have heard from those that have met the man that he was kind to them and inspired to him. I hope they will remember their experiences and carry them into the future.  
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** NeoNazo356: Same as many others are doing right now, I will honor Monty by doing something creative and making the world a better place; as his friends and colleagues have asked for in lieu of flowers. My drawing hands haven't been used in ages, but my writing and story-planning skills have reached a new plateau thanks in part to the work of the dearly departed, so I will spend whatever free time I can dedicate to making the best fanfiction I can in compliance with those heartfelt wishes, while making my already-existing works better than they were before.**

** Spaceman: The fans of Monty Oum's work create these stories because they love the world he created, now we also do this to honor his work. As fan fiction writers, these are the medium in which we honor his memory and show out love of his works. May inspiration continue to flow, since the world has gotten a little bit darker.  
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**Rest in Peace**

**Monty Oum**

**Age 33**

**June 22, 1981 - February 1, 2015**

**The world is a lesser place without you.**


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